ri^. 


A 


BS  2361  .M67  1918 
Mitchell,  C.  A. 
The  model  prayer 


Met 


s. 


^-''''■'' ''i% 


THE 
MODEL  PRAYER 

And  Other  New  Testament  Studies, 
Expository  and  Devotional 

/  BY 

C.  a'  MITCHELL,  Ph.D.,  D.D. 

Professor  ol  New  Testament  Literature  and  Exeeesis 
in  the  Omaha  Theological  Seminary 


ARTletveRJTATIi 


BOSTON 

THE  GORHAM  PRESS 

MCMXVIII 


.^\^ 


Copyright,  1918,  by  C.  A.  Mitchell 


All  Rights  Reserved 


Made  in  the  United  States  of  America 


The  Gorham  Press,  Boston,  U.S.A. 


To 

MY  STUDENTS 

with  whom  in  the  course  of  the  years 

many  pleasant  hours  have  been 

spent  discussing  these  and 

similar   themes   this 

little  volume  is 

dedicated 


PREFACE 

These  studies  are  an  outgrowth  of  my  work  in 
Seminary  instruction.  They  have  been  used  in 
pulpit  or  on  lecture  platform.  They  seem  to  me 
to  embody  in  a  telling  manner  certain  fundamental 
principles  of  the  Christian  religion  and  life.  It  is 
my  desire  in  publishing  them  to  give  them  more 
permanent  form  and,  I  hope,  render  them  more 
widely  useful.  All  helps  accessible  to  me  have 
been  used  in  preparing  these  studies,  and  general 
acknowledgment  of  the  use  of  such  helps  is  here 
made.  Some  items  of  material  and  turns  of  ex- 
pression in  the  fourth  study  (Life's  Record)  are 
derived  from  a  suggestive  editorial  in  The  Outlook 
(see  reading  references).  The  translation  of  First 
Corinthians  13  in  the  sixth  study  was  made  from 
Tischendorf's  Greek  text.  The  sixth  and  seventh 
studies  have  been  made  popular  in  quality  rather 
than  technical  or  scholastic,  in  order  to  adapt  them 
better  to  the  use  of  the  general  reader.  My  study 
of  Love,  which  was  originally  made  many  years  ago, 
has  profited  in  revision  by  reference  to  the  rich 
body  of  materials  brought  together  and  discussed  in 
Warfield's  able  and  thorough  study  of  the  N.  T. 
love  terminology,  just  published  in  The  Princeton 
Theological  Review  (see  reading  references).  In 
the  seventh  study  the  Greek  words  are  given  first  in 
5 


6  Preface 

Greek  letters,  but  for  the  sake  of  the  average  reader 
are  thereafter  given  transliterated  in  English  letters, 
and  almost  always  in  the  form  under  which  they 
appear  in  the  dictionary,  the  inflectional  require- 
ments of  the  Greek  being  disregarded,  as  likely  to 
be  confusing  to  the  general  reader.  A  very  few 
special  reading  references  are  appended  for  the  sake 
of  any  who  may  wish  to  pursue  the  study  of  some  of 
tliese  themes  further. 

The  Author. 


A  FEW  SPECIAL  READING  REFERENCES 

On  Study  I  see  Dr.  W.  R.  Richard's  A  Study  of 
the  Lord's  Prayer  (Presbyterian  Board  of  Publica- 
tion, $0.75). 

On  Study  IV  see  editorial  in  The  Outlook, 
80:615-616  (July  8,  1905).  Something  of  the 
secret,  physiologically  and  psychologically,  of  the 
registering  of  our  deeds  in  our  character  is  popularly 
set  forth  in  President  Henry  C.  King's  A  Fight  for 
Character.     See  also  the  modern  psychologies. 

On  Study  VI  see  Henry  Drummond's  The  Great- 
est Thing  in  the  World,  and  E.  Daplyn's  One  with 
the  Eternal  (Longmans,  Green  &  Co.,  $0.35). 

Study  VII.  Strangely  enough,  almost  no  easily 
accessible  satisfactory  literature  on  the  distinction  be- 
tween Agapao  and  Fileo  has  been  available.  It  is 
therefore  very  gratifying  to  be  able  now  to  refer 
the  reader  who  wishes  to  pursue  the  study  of  Love 
further  to  Dr.  Warfield's  able  and  satisfying  discus- 
sion of  "  The  Terminology  of  Love  in  the  New 
Testament,"  in  The  Princeton  Theological  Review, 
16:1-45,  153-203  (Jan.  and  Apr.,  1918),  where 
numerous  references  to  other  and  less  readily  acces- 
sible literature  will  be  found. 


CONTENTS 

STUDY  PAGE 

I     The  Model  Prayer ii 

II    The  Fatherhood  of  God  ....  30 

III  The    Keynote    of    the    Christian 

Life 49 

IV  Life's  Record 70 

V     Pathway  and  Goal 90 

VI     St.  Paul's  Love  Chapter  ....  109 

VII     A    Study    of    Love,    the    Supreme 

Christian  Grace 129 


THE  MODEL  PRAYER 


THE  MODEL  PRAYER 


THE  MODEL  PRAYER 
An  Exposition  of  Matt.  6:9-13 

PRAY'ER  is  essential  to  the  Christian  life.  A 
prayerless  life  would  not  be  a  Christian  life. 
Jesus  set  the  example  of  prayer;  He  commanded 
us  to  pray;  and  He  taught  a  model  form  of  prayer. 

This  form  of  prayer  commonly  goes  by  the  title 
of  The  Lord's  Prayer.  Though  we  cannot  now 
change  established  usage,  this  title  is  from  several 
points  of  view  a  misnomer.  The  real  Lord's 
prayer  is  found  in  the  seventeenth  chapter  of  John. 
The  most  suitable  title  for  the  form  of  prayer  He 
taught  His  disciples  would  be  The  Model  Prayer, 
and  by  that  title  we  shall  call  it  here. 

Of  the  Model  Prayer  we  have  in  the  Gospels  two 
reports,  Matt.  6:9-13,  and  Luke  11:2-4.  The 
latter  may  give  the  historical  occasion  when  the 
prayer  was  taught,  the  former  is  somewhat  fuller 
and  richer  in  material,  and  will  form  the  basis  of 
our  study. 

On  inspection,  we  find  that  the  Model  Prayer, 
in  Matthew's  form  of  report  as  it  stands  in  our 
II 


12  The  Model  Prayer 

A.V.  Bibles,  consists  of  three  parts,  viz.,  the  ad- 
dress at  the  beginning;  the  doxology  at  the  end; 
and  a  series  of  six  petitions,  which  constitute  the 
body  of  the  prayer.  We  find  further  that  these 
petitions  fall  naturally  into  two  groups  of  three 
each,  the  first  group  being  petitions  for  God's  glory 
and  the  fulfilment  of  His  will,  the  second  group 
petitions  for  the  supply  of  personal  needs. 

The  Address — "Our  Father,  who  art  in 
heaven." 

We  note  first  that  this  prayer  begins  with  the 
right  conception  of  God.  This  is  a  matter  of  su- 
preme importance.  The  character  of  any  religion 
is  determined  by  the  idea  of  God  which  it  cher- 
ishes. A  right  conception  of  God  is  essential  to 
any  worthy  form  of  religion.  If  Christianity  is 
the  best  and  highest  religion,  as  we  believe  it  is, 
this  is  for  one  thing  because  it  cherishes  the  best 
and  highest  idea  of  God.  The  Model  Prayer 
teaches  us  to  conceive  of  God  as  a  Father.  This 
was  Jesus'  characteristic  designation  for  God,  the 
Gospel  report  of  His  teaching  containing  this 
title  for  God  not  much  short  of  two  hundred  times. 
This  title  I  take  it  is  a  turn  of  expression  designed 
especially  to  reveal  God's  attitude  toward  men. 
He  has  the  attitude  and  disposition  of  a  father, 
with  all  the  love  and  tenderness  and  sympathy  and 
readiness  to  help  which  fatherhood  implies.  And 
just  think  how  much  this  means  for  the  act  and 
exercise  of  prayer.  For  our  satisfaction  and  joy 
in  the  prayer-life  it  is  indispensable  that  we  think 
of  God  as  a  Father,  who  loves  us,  sympathizes  with 


The  Model  Prayer  13 

us,  pities  us  in  trouble  and  sorrow,  longs  to  com- 
fort and  to  help,  and  to  fill  our  lives  with  blessing. 
And  so  in  the  Model  Prayer  Jesus  taught  us  when 
we  go  to  God  to  conceive  of  Him  and  address 
Him  as  Father.  And  here  it  may  be  noted  that 
this  is  the  way  Jesus  himself  addressed  God  in 
prayer  (Matt.  11:25,  Luke  22:42,  John  11:41, 
12:27,  28,  I7:iif.,  etc.).  In  fact  Jesus'  doctrine 
of  praj^er  is  only  a  corollary  of  his  doctrine  of 
God.  If  God  is  a  Father  Jesus'  doctrine  of  prayer 
follows  as  a  matter  of  course.  One's  idea  of  God 
and  view  of  prayer  are  inseparable.  If  we  find 
a  man  holding  Jesus'  view  of  prayer  we  may  be 
sure  that  he  also  has  Jesus'  idea  of  God.  And 
conversely,  if  we  find  a  man's  view  of  praj^er  dif- 
fers from  that  of  Jesus,  w^e  may  confidently  sus- 
pect that  his  idea  of  God  also  differs. 

Again,  as  respects  the  address  of  the  Model 
Prayer,  we  note  that  this  prayer  begins  with  the 
right  conception  of  mans  relation  to  God.  If 
God  is  a  Father,  men  are  (or  ought  to  be)  His 
children.  Jesus  repeatedly  called  on  us  to  be  the 
children  of  our  Father  in  heaven  (e.g.  Matt. 
5:45).  This  is  one  of  the  dearest  and  tenderest 
thoughts  of  all  Scripture.  It  means  that  we  are  to 
cherish  toward  God  the  attitude  and  disposition 
which  ideally  children  would  have  toward  a  father. 
We  must  cultivate  and  maintain  toward  Him  that 
reverence  and  love,  and  that  spirit  of  loyal  and 
trustful  obedience,  which  constitute  the  essence  of 
the  filial  spirit.  If  we  can  do  this,  we  shall  have 
the  whole  spirit  and  essence  of  Christianity  for  our 


14  The  Model  Prayer 

~ ■  ^ 

own.  For  God  requires  no  more  of  us  than  that 
we  should  be  His  loving  and  loyal  sons  and  daugh- 
ters. How  simple,  and  yet  how  profound  and  all- 
comprehensive  this  is.  The  true  child  heart  is  the 
fountain  and  source  of  all  performance  of  duty, 
and  includes  and  carries  with  it  all  that  our  Father 
in  heaven  requires.  And  the  Model  Prayer  teaches 
that  it  is  with  such  a  heart  we  are  to  come  to  God 
in  prayer.  Only  those  can  truly  pray  who  are  or 
who  desire  to  be  children  of  God. 

And  this  gives  us  the  right  point  of  view  for  the 
interpretation  of  the  Model  Prayer,  and  indeed  of 
all  prayer.  True  prayer  can  be  understood  only 
as  an  expression  of  the  heart  of  a  loving  and  loyal 
child  to  the  Father  in  heaven,  revered  and  trusted. 
And  we  must  seek  so  to  understand  the  Model 
Prayer.  There  is  no  other  way  to  understand  it. 
We  must  try  to  remember  this  all  through  the  ex- 
position. 

And  still  again,  as  respects  the  address  of  this 
great  prayer,  we  note  that  it  also  includes  the  proper 
relation  of  men  with  each  other.  By  the  words 
"  Our  Father  "  it  teaches  us  to  recognize  the  son- 
ship  and  daughterhood  to  God  of  others  beside  our- 
selves, and  to  include  them  in  our  thought  at  prayer. 
(Note  also  the  plural  "us"  in  the  second  set  of 
petitions.)  Now  if  we  recognize  their  and  our 
sonship  to  the  common  Father  God,  that  means  that 
they  and  we  are  brethren.  So  the  very  first  words 
of  the  Model  Prayer  teach  the  brotherhood  of  men, 
and  require  recognition  of  this  brotherhood  in  all 
true  prayer.     The  Model  Prayer  indeed  is  full  of 


The  Model  Prayer  15 

the  spirit  of  brotherhood.  Note  the  law  of  brother- 
hood in  the  later  petition  of  the  prayer,  "  forgive  us 
as  we  forgive  others"  (Matt.  6:12,  14,  15,  cf. 
Mark  11:25,  26,  Matt.  18:21-35,  etc.).  A 
brotherly  spirit  toward  others  is  essential  to  true 
prayer,  just  as  essential  as  a  right  idea  of  God  and 
a  right  attitude  toward  Him.  I  think  we  may 
learn  from  this  that  the  man  of  unbrotherly  spirit, 
who  is  hard  and  unforgiving  toward  others,  cannot 
truly  pray.  At  least  he  cannot  sincerely  and  gen- 
uinely pray  the  Model  Prayer.  The  teaching  of 
Jesus  abounds  in  commands  that  we  should  love  our 
fellow  men,  and  look  upon  them  and  treat  them  as 
brethren.  To  truly  love  God  without  loving  men 
is  impossible.  *'  If  a  man  say,  I  love  God,  and 
hateth  his  brother,  he  is  a  liar:  for  he  that  loveth 
not  his  brother  whom  he  hath  seen,  cannot  love  God 
whom  he  hath  not  seen"  (i  John  4:20).  Espe- 
cially does  the  spirit  of  the  Model  Prayer  require 
us,  as  we  recognize  God  as  our  Father,  also  to  recog- 
nize God's  other  children  as  our  brethren.  And  so 
we  have  this  commandment  of  Him,  that  he  who 
loveth  God  love  his  brother  also  (i  John  4:21). 

Thus  the  address  of  the  Model  Prayer  teaches  us 
three  things,  (i)  the  fatherhood  of  God  to  men, 
(2)  the  sonship  of  men  to  God,  and  (3)  the 
brotherhood  of  men  with  each  other.  And  these 
are  three  principles,  which  taken  together  consti- 
tute the  essence  of  Christianity.  The  Model 
Prayer,  therefore,  and  all  true  prayer  are  based 
upon  and  presuppose  the  whole  spiritual  situation 
which   the   Gospel  calls   for  and  w^as   designed   to 


1 6  The  Model  Prayer 

bring  about.  In  the  Model  Prayer,  as  in  all  His 
teaching,  Jesus  directs  us  to  establish  right  relations 
with  God  and  with  our  fellow  men,  to  cultivate  a 
right  attitude  and  disposition  toward  both,  to  de- 
velop and  cherish  a  heart  of  love  toward  both,  to 
recognize  one  as  Father  and  the  others  as  brethren 
and  act  accordingly ;  and  if  we  do  this  we  shall  have 
the  spirit  which  the  Model  Prayer  breathes,  and 
shall  fulfil  all  the  law  and  the  Gospel. 

We  turn  now  from  the  address  to  the  petitions. 
These,  as  has  been  said,  are  six  in  number,  in  two 
groups  of  three  each,  the  first  group  consisting  of 
petitions  for  God's  glor}^  and  the  fulfilment  of  His 
will,  the  second  group  consisting  of  petitions  for 
personal  needs.  And  just  here  we  note  that  the 
petitions  for  God's  glory  come  first,  and  those  for 
personal  needs  afterward.  It  is  characteristic  of 
the  loyal  child  of  God  that  he  thinks  of  God's  honor 
first,  and  of  self  last.  The  promotion  of  his 
heavenly  Father's  glory  is  dearer  to  him  than  the 
supply  of  his  own  personal  needs.  In  all  true 
prayer  God  is  magnified  and  self  minified.  And 
this  because  true  prayer  is  an  expression  of  a  loving 
and  loyal  child's  heart  toward  the  Father  in  heaven. 
How  true  the  Model  Prayer  is  psychologically  in 
the  very  order  of  its  clauses,  how  lofty  and  beautiful 
the  sentiment  which  pervades  it,  how  noble  and 
elevating  the  very  atmosphere  of  its  thought !  How 
unselfish,  how  reverent,  how  devoted  to  God  our 
heavenly  Father,  it  calls  on  us  to  be.  It  challenges 
and  inspires  the  best  there  is  in  us,  and  beckons  us 
onward  and  upward  to  heroic  endeavor  and  lofty 


The  Model  Prayer  17 

spiritual  attainment.  The  self-centered  life  is  a 
poor  and  petty  thing  at  best.  But  the  spirit  of  this 
prayer  lifts  us  out  of  ourselves  and  opens  to  us  the 
high  and  blessed  possibilities  of  the  God-centered 
life.  By  the  way  it  subordinates  self  and  exalts 
God  the  Model  Prayer  demands  that  our  lives  be 
^/zfo-centric,  7iot  ego-centric.  And  thus  it  points  us 
to  the  true  way  of  attaining  dignity  and  worthiness 
of  life,  which  are  found  in  renouncing  self  and 
yielding  the  life  in  loyal  loving  devotion  to  the  serv- 
ice and  glory  of  the  Father  in  heaven.  "  He  that 
loveth  his  life  shall  lose  it,  but  he  thatloseth  his 
life"  (by  surrendering  it  to  God)  "shall  save  it." 
God  can  give  us  no  glory  apart  from  himself ;  but  in 
our  heavenly  Father's  glory  we  His  children  shall 
also  find  glory  (cf.  John  17:1,  4,  5.). 

In  passing  we  ought  to  remind  ourselves  how 
beautifully,  how  perfectly,  Jesus  himself  exempli- 
fied in  his  life  the  spirit  of  the  prayer  He  taught  his 
people  to  pray.  He  was  the  model,  the  ideal.  Son 
of  God,  and  has  left  us  a  perfect  example  in  this 
respect.  In  all  things  He  utterly  renounced  self 
and  made  God  central  and  supreme  in  His  life.  To 
Him  the  Father's  honor  w^as  supremely  dear. 
There  were  no  interests  so  near  to  His  heart  as 
those  of  the  Father  he  loved  and  revered.  And 
so  it  ought  to  be  with  us,  our  heavenly  Father  first 
and  foremost  in  our  lives.  Jesus  also  lived  His 
prayer,  and  thus  contributed  to  the  fulfilment  of 
its  petitions  for  the  promotion  of  the  Father's 
glory.  His  own  life  constituted  as  it  were  an  an- 
swer to  His  prayer.     Shall  not  we  strive  to  be  like 


The  Model  Prayer 


him  in  this  respect?  It  was  filial  love  which  dic- 
tated that  group  of  petitions  for  the  Father's  glory 
in  the  Model  Prayer.  If  such  love  prompts  us  to 
repeat  those  petitions  sincerely,  surely  we  too  will 
strive  to  furnish  some  part  of  a  positive  answer  to 
them  in  our  lives! 

But  let  us  briefly  consider  these  petitions  sep- 
arately. 

( I )  The  first  petition  — "  Hallowed  be  thy 
name."  This  petition  is  a  prayer  that  God's  name 
may  be  revered  and  kept  holy  by  all,  everywhere 
and  always.  It  is  a  petition  dictated  by  filial  love. 
The  Father's  honor  and  good  name  are  very  dear 
to  the  true  and  loyal  child.  If  we  love  God  we 
will  be  jealous  of  His  honor,  and  this  petition, 
"  Hallowed  be  thy  name,"  so  expressive  of  the 
spirit  of  sonship,  will  spring  naturally  and  first  of 
all  to  our  lips,  as  it  did  to  the  lips  of  Jesus  when 
He  taught  His  disciples  how  to  pray. 

It  is  right,  too,  that  in  approaching  God  in 
prayer,  we  should  recognize  His  transcendent  great- 
ness, and  give  Him  the  reverence  and  adoration 
which  are  His  due.  And  this  is  done  in  the  address 
and  the  first  petition  of  the  Model  Prayer.  It  is 
most  appropriate  that  prayer  should  begin  with 
adoration.  But  in  rendering  this  adoration  wx 
must  strive  to  catch  the  highest  point  of  view, 
which  is  that  of  the  Model  Prayer.  A  mere  crea- 
ture may  give  reverence  and  adoration  to  God  as 
Creator.  Or  we  might  go  to  Him  as  subjects  to  a 
King.  But  Jesus  taught  us  to  come  to  God,  not 
merely  as  creatures  to  a  Creator,  nor  as  subjects  to 


The  Model  Prayer  IQ 

their  King,  but  as  children  to  a  Father;  and  we 
shall  miss  the  sweet  and  blessed  spirit  of  this  prayer 
unless  we  understand  it  in  the  light  of  this  high  and 
holy  relation.  God  is  our  Father  and  has  the  heart 
of  a  father  toward  us.  We  are  His  children  and 
have  the  heart  and  attitude  of  true  and  loyal  chil- 
dren toward  Him.  And  for  that  reason  especially 
we  give  Him  reverence  and  are  jealous  for  His 
honor  and  good  name.  It  is  as  sons  and  daughters 
of  the  Lord  Almighty  that  we  bow  before  Him  and 
sweetly  and  reverently  pray  *'  Hallowed  be  thy 
name." 

(2)  The  second  petition  reads,  "Thy  kingdom 
come."  This  petition  recognizes  God  our  Father 
as  also  King.  He  is  indeed  sovereign  in  His  uni- 
verse; but  for  mysterious  reasons  his  sovereignty  Is 
not  everywhere  established.  There  are  rebellious 
angels  and  wicked  men,  who  reject  God's  sover- 
eignty and  resist  His  will.  We  His  loyal  children 
wish  to  see  these  enemies  of  the  sovereign  Father 
subdued,  and  His  kingship  recognized  and  estab- 
lished everywhere. 

(3)  The  third  petition,  "Thy  will  be  done  on 
earth  as  It  Is  in  heaven,"  throws  much  light  on  the 
second,  and  may  Indeed  be  regarded  as  an  explan- 
ation (epexegesis)  of  It.  God's  kingdom  is  the 
realm  in  which  His  will  is  fully  done.  We  learn 
here  that  this  is  so  In  heaven,  but  w^e  are  keenly 
aware  that  it  is  not  so  on  earth.  And  as  loyal 
children  we  want  our  heavenly  Father's  holy  and 
beneficent  reign  established  here  as  well  as  in  heaven. 
The  two  petitions  taken   together  therefore  mean 


20  The  Model  Prayer 

something  like  this,  "  May  thy  sovereign  sway,  O 
God  our  Father  in  heaven,  be  extended  from  heaven 
to  the  earth  (where  the  adversary  now  rules,  John 
12:31,  14:30,  16:11,  etc.)  so  as  to  extirpate  all 
wickedness,  and  make  earth  like  heaven."  This 
we  know  is  in  process  of  realization.  The  king- 
dom of  heaven,  planted  by  Jesus  like  a  grain  of 
mustard  seed,  has  been  growing  from  such  small 
beginning,  and  is  becoming  a  great  tree,  destined  to 
fill  the  whole  earth.  And  Scripture  points  us  on  to 
a  time  when,  according  to  God's  promise,  the  de- 
velopment of  His  kingdom  shall  reach  its  consum- 
mation, and  there  shall  be  "  a  new  earth,  wherein 
dwelleth  righteousness"  (2  Pet.  3:13).  And  the 
holy  city,  new  Jerusalem,  shall  come  down  from 
God  out  of  heaven,  prepared  as  a  bride  adorned 
for  her  husband.  And  a  great  voice  out  of  heaven 
shall  say.  Behold  the  tabernacle  of  God  is  with 
men,  and  He  will  dwell  with  them,  and  they  shall 
be  his  people,  and  God  himself  shall  be  with  them, 
and  be  their  God  (Rev.  21:2,  3).  And  there  shall 
be  no  more  curse,  but  the  throne  of  God  and  of  the 
Lamb  shall  be  there,  and  His  servants  shall  serve 
Him;  and  they  shall  see  His  face,  and  His  name 
shall  be  in  their  foreheads;  and  there  shall  be  no 
night  there,  and  they  need  no  candle,  neither  light 
of  the  sun,  for  the  Lord  God  giveth  them  light; 
and    they    shall    reign    forever    and    ever     (Rev. 

22:3-5). 

Truly  when  we  pray  "  Thy  kingdom  come,  thy 
will  be  done  on  earth  as  it  is  in  heaven,"  we  pray 
according  to  the  will  of  God!     And  the  answer  to 


The  Model  Prayer  21 

such  prayer  can  never  fail  (i  John  5  :i4,  15).  And 
so  with  joy  we  see  our  heavenly  Father's  kingdom 
grow  on  earth,  and  with  happy  confidence  and  glow- 
ing hope  we  pray  and  labor  for  its  coming.  And 
with  the  eager  anticipation  of  the  true  child  heart 
w^e  look  for  and  haste  unto  the  promised  future  con- 
summation of  this  kingdom,  that  "  one  far-off 
divine  event  toward  which  the  whole  creation 
moves." 

And  now,  before  we  turn  to  the  second  group  of 
petitions,  we  must  note  that  the  true  child  of  God 
as  a  matter  of  course  includes  himself  in  these  peti- 
tions for  the  honor  of  his  Father  in  heaven.  He 
not  only  wants  God's  name  hallowed  by  others,  but 
by  himself.  He  prays  that  God's  kingdom  may 
come  and  His  will  be  done  not  only  in  other  men's 
hearts  and  lives,  but  in  his  own  as  well.  No  one 
who  does  not  heartily  and  fervently  include  himself 
in  these  petitions  can  honestly  and  sincerely  pray 
this  praj'er  at  all.  So  Jesus,  the  model  Son,  proved 
his  sincerity  in  praying  for  the  Father's  honor  when 
in  Gethsemane  He  accepted  suffering  and  death 
with  the  words  "  thy  will  be  done,"  words  so 
sweetly  expressive  of  the  filial  spirit.  He  who  hon- 
estly prays  the  Model  Prayer  will  also  wish  and 
w^ork  for  the  answer  thereto  to  be  realized  in  his 
own  heart  and  life. 

The  second  group  of  petitions,  three  in  number, 
is  for  personal  needs,  as  follows: 

(4)  The  fourth  petition,  '*  Give  us  this  day  our 
daily  bread."  The  first  human  need  is  means  of 
daily  subsistence  (cf.  Matt.  6:32).     This  means  it 


22  The  Model  Prayer 

is  God's  will  to  supply  as  may  be  best  for  our 
spiritual  life  and  the  growth  of  His  kingdom  in 
our  hearts  and  in  the  world.  Our  heavenly  Father 
has  a  father's  heart  toward  us  in  respect  to  all  the 
needs  of  our  nature,  and  wills  that  these  needs  be 
supplied  and  satisfied  as  may  be  best,  all  considered. 

(The  Greek  word  translated  "daily"  in  this 
petition  is  probably  related  to  a  Greek  participle 
meaning  "  oncoming,"  very  common  in  the  phrase 
"  the  oncoming  day."  The  prayer  seems  to  be 
conceived  of  as  being  prayed  at  the  beginning  of  the 
day,  for  the  supply  of  the  needs  of  that  day  upon 
which  one  is  just  entering,  thus  *'  Give  us  today  our 
bread  for  today."  The  Saviour  does  not  expect  us 
unduly  to  concern  ourselves  today  about  tomor- 
row's needs,  Matt.  6:34.) 

Thus  we  learn  that  it  is  right  to  pray  for  the 
supply  of  our  natural  earthly  needs,  such  as  food, 
raiment  and  shelter.  But  we  must  never  forget 
that  we  go  to  God  about  these  things  as  to  a 
Father,  recognizing  His  superior  wisdom.  We 
know  He  wants  us  to  have  what  is  needful.  But 
we  often  think  things  are  needful  when  they  are 
not.  The  divine  standard  and  the  human  standard 
of  living  often  differ  greatly.  So  when  our  prayers 
do  not  bring  us  all  we  may  desire  we  must  not 
jump  to  the  conclusion  that  God  does  not  answer 
prayer.  All  true  prayer  has  as  its  point  of  de- 
parture "  if  God  will/'  The  loyal  child  recognizes 
the  superior  wisdom  and  foresight  of  the  Father  in 
heaven,  and  prefers  every  request  with  the  expressed 
or  implied  condition,  "  Grant  me  this.  Father,  if. 


The  Model  Prayer  23 

all  considered,  it  will  be  best  for  me  and  for  all  con- 
cerned." We  must  remember  that,  in  the  Model 
Prayer,  the  petition  **  thy  will  be  done  "  precedes 
and  conditions  the  petitions  for  personal  needs. 
These  latter  petitions  are  to  be  prayed  always  sub- 
ject to  that  earlier  petition.  And  this  is  as  it 
ought  to  be.  It  is  but  another  point  in  the  beauty 
and  correctness  of  this  prayer.  If  it  were  not  so, 
the  prayer  would  not  be  model.  The  truth  is  that, 
though  he  may  from  the  human  point  of  view  find 
it  hard  to  have  his  requests  postponed  or  denied,  the 
true  and  loyal  child  of  God  would  really  prefer 
not  to  have  anything  granted  to  him  which  the 
Father  in  heaven  knows  would  not,  all  considered, 
be  best.  Not  always  for  his  own  sake,  either,  but 
sometimes  for  the  sake  of  others  or  for  the  interests 
of  the  divine  kingdom  he  may  have  to  be  denied. 
And  in  such  cases  reverently  and  lovingly  does  he 
fall  in  with  the  Father's  aims  and  plans,  and  making 
God's  will  his  will,  he  bows  in  glad  filial  submis- 
sion to  the  superior  wisdom  of  his  Father  in  heaven, 
and  says,  like  Jesus  the  model  and  ideal  Son,  "  Even 
so.  Father,  for  so  it  seemed  good  in  thy  sight " 
(Matt.  11:26). 

(5)  The  fifth  petition,  "And  forgive  us  our 
debts  as  we  forgive  our  debtors."  This  petition 
also  is  vitally  related  to  the  third  petition.  Con- 
scious of  and  sorry  for  the  sin  which  mars  his  char- 
acter and  life,  the  true  child  asks  his  heavenly 
Father's  forgiveness  for  having  failed  to  fulfil  all 
His  will  (cf.  the  third  petition,  and  Luke  15:21). 
And  at  the  same  time,  true  to  the  spiritual  relations 


24  The  Model  Prayer 

presupposed  in  the  prayer  (see  p.  14  f.)?  he  exer- 
cises brotherliness  by  cherishing  a  forgiving  spirit 
toward  others.  In  the  words  of  Andrew  Murray, 
"  As  forgiven  expresses  the  heavenward,  so  for- 
giving (expresses)  the  earthward  relation  of  God's 
child." 

Certain  special  points  call  for  brief  consideration 
here,  (a)  The  correct  word  to  use  in  this  petition, 
if  we  are  to  preserve  in  our  translation  the  figure 
in  the  original  Greek,  is  the  word  "  debts,"  and  not 
"  trespasses,"  which  implies  another  figure.  (In 
the  parallel  report  in  Luke  1 1 14  the  word  used  is 
"sins,"  which  involves  still  another  figure.)  (b) 
Request  for  forgiveness  presupposes  repentance; 
and  repentance  involves  four  things,  viz.,  recogni- 
tion that  we  have  done  wrong,  sorrow  for  it,  desire 
to  make  all  possible  reparation,  and  a  firm  deter- 
mination never  to  repeat  the  wrong.  Repentance 
is  a  right  attitude  of  heart  as  respects  wrong-doing, 
and  is  the  pre-condition  of  all  forgiveness.  With- 
out repentance  there  can  be  no  forgiveness.  Even 
God  himself  cannot  forgive  the  impenitent,  (c) 
Application  of  this  truth  to  the  forgiveness  of 
those  who  wrong  us.  We  are  to  love  others,  even 
our  enemies,  and  have  a  brotherly  attitude  toward 
them.  And  this  involves  also  an  attitude  and  spirit 
of  forgiveness  toward  them  when  they  wrong  us. 
Jesus  vigorously  emphasized  this  matter  of  brotherly 
forgiveness  in  that  this  is  the  only  petition  of  the 
prayer  commented  on  and  enforced  immediately 
after  the  prayer  (Matt.  6:14,  15)  ;  in  the  beautiful 
parable  of  the  unmerciful  servant   (Matt.   18:23- 


The  Model  Prayer  25 

35)  ;  and  especially  in  the  teaching  that  we  are  to 
exercise  an  unlimited  measure  of  forgiveness  to- 
ward an  offending  brother  (Matt.  18:21,  22, 
"  until  seventy  times  seven  ").  But  though  forgive- 
ness is  to  be  unlimited,  it  is  not  to  be,  and  indeed 
cannot  be,  unconditional.  No  man  can  forgive, 
God  himself  cannot  forgive,  the  impenitent.  For- 
giveness is  conditioned  on  repentance.  ''If  he  re- 
pent, forgive  him,"  said  Jesus  (Luke  17:3,  4).  We 
must  distinguish  between  a  forgiving  attitude  and 
actual  forgiveness.  A  forgiving  attitude,  a  readi- 
ness to  forgive,  we  must  always  have  and  cherish. 
But  actual  forgiveness  cannot  be  accomplished 
unless  the  offending  party  is  penitent.  This  is  be- 
cause forgiveness  is  a  mutual  thing.  It  has  to  be 
accepted  as  well  as  granted.  And  how  can  a  wrong- 
doer accept  a  forgiveness  if  he  does  not  recognize 
that  he  has  done  any  injury,  or  is  not  sorr>'  that  he 
has?  His  attitude  of  spirit  makes  the  accomplish- 
ing of  the  act  of  forgiveness  impossible.  So,  w-hile 
we  must  always  have  a  brotherly  and  forgiving 
spirit,  i.  e.,  be  ready  to  forgive,  which  is  what  we 
mean  when  we  say  in  the  Model  Prayer,  "  as  we 
forgive  our  debtors,"  nevertheless  w-e  cannot  ac- 
tually forgive  impenitent  offenders  against  us,  be- 
cause they  will  not  accept  our  forgiveness!  But 
w^hat  shall  we  do  in  such  a  case?  Jesus  has  told 
us  what  to  do.  We  are  to  go  on  loving  and  having 
a  brotherly  and  forgiving  disposition  toward  our 
injurer,  and  in  every  judicious  and  tactful  way  to 
seek  reconciliation  with  him  (Matt.  18:15,  16). 
But  if  he  persists  in  his  impenitent  attitude  and  re- 


26  The  Model  Prayer 

fuses  to  accept  our  forgiveness,  thus  making  actual 
reconciliation  impossible,  Jesus  tells  us  all  we  can 
do  for  the  time  is  to  '*  let  him  be  unto  thee  as  a 
heathen  man  and  a  pubHcan "  (Matt.  18:17). 
And  this  unhappy  situation  can  be  changed  only  by 
the  repentance  and  changed  attitude  of  the  offending 
party. 

(6)  The  sixth  and  last  petition  reads,  *' And 
lead  us  not  into  temptation,  but  deliver  us  from  the 
evil  one."  This  is  but  one  petition,  first  nega- 
tively and  then  positively  stated.  The  true  child 
of  God  desires  not  only  pardon  for  past  sin,  but  pre- 
vention of  future  sin.  Hence  this  prayer  for  the 
heavenly  Father's  help.  Strictly  rendered  the 
Greek  would  read,  ''  rescue  us  from  the  Evil  one." 
In  the  A.  V.  the  rendering,  familiar  to  us  all,  is 
"  deliver  us  from  evil."  But  all  the  ancient 
fathers,  whose  mother  tongue  was  Greek,  and 
whose  opinion  on  this  point  is  therefore  very 
weighty,  understood  the  word  for  **  evil  "  here  as 
masculine  and  personal,  not  neuter  and  abstract; 
and  its  proper  rendering  then  would  be  "  the  Evil 
one."  This  understanding  of  the  words  by  the 
fathers  may  also  have  been  determined  by  a  tradi- 
tion of  their  meaning,  handed  down  in  the  early 
church  from  the  days  of  Christ  and  the  apostles, 
but  nowhere  recorded  except  in  the  opinion  adopted 
by  the  early  fathers  as  to  the  sense  of  this  phrase  in 
the  Model  Prayer.  Both  the  English  RV.  and 
the  A.  RV.  have,  I  believe  rightly,  adopted  the 
translation  "  the  evil  one." 

So  the  loyal  child  of  God  prays  for  rescue  from 


The  Model  Prayer  27 

the  Evil  One,  in  order  that  his  life  may  be  ruled 
not  by  Satan  but  by  God.  Divine  help  is  needed 
in  order  that,  victory  over  sin  having  become  com- 
plete, the  Father's  will  may  be  fully  accomplished 
and  the  status  of  sonship  made  perfect  in  us  and  in 
our  lives. 

This  exposition  has  now  covered  the  parts  of  the 
Model  Prayer  as  Jesus  taught  it.  The  doxology, 
'*  For  thine  is  the  kingdom  and  the  power  and  the 
glor>^  forever.  Amen,"  which  stands  at  the  end 
of  the  praj^er  in  our  A.V.  Bibles,  was  not  a  part  of 
the  prayer  as  Jesus  taught  it,  nor  a  part  of  the 
gospel  of  Matthew  as  he  wrote  it.  The  form  of 
the  prayer  as  reported  by  Luke  (11:2-4)  has  no 
doxology.  In  Matthew  also  the  doxology  is  want- 
ing in  the  best  and  most  ancient  manuscripts  and 
other  sources  of  the  text.  The  earliest  fathers  did 
not  recognize  any  such  doxology.  Thus  Origen, 
Tertullian,  and  Cyprian,  who  wrote  commentaries 
on  the  Lord's  Prayer,  seem  to  have  known  nothing 
of  the  doxology.  The  early  Roman  liturgies  do 
not  contain  it.  It  is  not  used  by  the  Roman  Catho- 
lic church  at  all,  and  has  never  been.  It  is  found 
only  in  the  later  and  less  trustworthy  sources  of 
the  New  Testament  text;  and  even  in  them  its 
wording  shows  considerable  variation,  which  in 
itself  is  a  suspicious  circumstance  from  a  textual 
point  of  view.  All  considered,  the  evidence  is  over- 
whelmingly against  the  genuineness  of  this  passage. 
We  must  conclude  then  that  it  is  spurious,  i.  e., 
that  it  is  not  a  genuine  original  part  either  of 
Matthew's   gospel    or   of    the    Model    Prayer.     It 


28  The  Model  Prayer 

ought  to  be  omitted  from  the  text  of  both,  and 
relegated  to  the  margin,  and  this  is  just  where  you 
will  find  it  in  both  the  English  RV.  and  the  A. 
RV. 

But  if  textually  spurious,  how  came  it  into 
any  copies  of  the  gospel?  The  answer  is  that  it 
was  probably  a  liturgical  addition,  originally  writ- 
ten in  the  margin  of  some  manuscript  of  Matthew's 
gospel.  Later,  when  this  manuscript  came  to  be 
copied,  the  marginal  passage  was  mistakenly  taken 
to  be  a  part  of  the  gospel  text,  and  was  ignorantly 
and  innocently  copied  into  the  body  of  the  text, 
and  then  this  interpolated  copy  was  copied,  inter- 
polation and  all,  and  so  the  spurious  doxology  got 
into  many  copies,  but  only  the  relatively  late  and 
corrupt  ones,  and  all  very  innocently  and  with  no 
intention  to  deceive. 

It  was  the  custom  in  Palestine  and  Syria,  first 
with  the  Jews  in  their  synagogues,  and  then  (under 
the  influence  of  this  example)  also  with  the  Chris- 
tians in  their  churches,  for  the  congregation  to 
make  a  set  form  of  response  to  the  public  prayers. 
The  doxology  to  the  Model  Prayer  was  probably 
originally  such  a  response,  used  by  Jewish  Christians 
of  Syria  and  the  East.  It  was  quite  certainly  based 
upon  the  old  Jewish  doxology  of  i  Chron.  29:11, 
which  reads:  "Thine,  O  Jehovah,  is  the  great- 
ness, and  the  powder,  and  the  glory,  and  the  victory, 
and  the  majesty;  for  all  that  is  in  the  heavens  and 
in  the  earth  is  thine;  thine  is  the  kingdom,  O  Jeho- 
vah, and  thou  art  exalted  as  head  above  all." 
As  already  stated,  it  was  probably  originally  writ- 


The  Model  Prayer  29 

ten  in  the  margin,  and  thence  got  into  the  text. 
In  relegating  it  to  the  margin  the  R.V.'s  have  simply 
put  it  back  where  it  came  from. 

But  if  this  doxology  is  not  a  genuine  part  of  the 
Model  Prayer,  what  about  our  use  of  it  in  wor- 
ship? The  answer  is  very  simple.  This  doxology 
is  Scriptural  in  content  and  of  Scriptural  origin. 
It  has  become  consecrated  by  long  usage  and  is  in 
every  way  suitable  for  use.  If  we  reject  this  form 
of  conclusion  to  the  Model  Prayer,  we  should  have 
to  invent  some  other  form,  for  the  prayer  without 
the  doxology  is  liturgically  incomplete.  Indeed 
this  may  be  the  very  reason  why  such  a  form  of 
response  came  to  be  used  with  it.  And  perhaps  it 
was  taught  in  the  brief  original  form  by  Jesus  him- 
self, with  the  understanding  that  the  response  or- 
dinarily used  in  worship  would  be  used  with  this 
prayer  also  and  serve  to  make  it  liturgically  com- 
plete. There  is  therefore  not  only  no  good  reason 
for  rejecting  the  familiar  doxology  from  usage,  but 
many  of  the  best  and  weightiest  reasons  for  contin- 
uing its  use.  Among  other  things,  such  an  ascrip- 
tion of  praise  to  our  Father  in  heaven  is  very  suit- 
able on  the  part  of  us  his  earthly  children. 

And  now  it  only  remains  for  us  to  remind  our- 
selves in  conclusion,  if  we  could  but  rise  to  the 
spiritual  level  of  this  prayer  we  have  been  studying, 
and  have  God's  fatherhood  to  us  and  our  sonship 
and  daughterhood  to  him  matters  of  living  reality 
and  joyous  personal  experience  every  day,  how 
blessed  it  would  be,  and  what  peace  and  strength 
it  would  bring  into  our  troubled  hearts  and  our 
often  weary  and  always  needy  lives! 


II 

THE  FATHERHOOD  OF  GOD 
A  Practical  and  Devotional  Study 

JESUS,  the  founder  of  Christianity,  brought  the 
Christian  idea  of  God  into  the  world  as  some- 
thing essentially  new.  Among  the  Jews,  as  the 
Old  Testament  shows,  God  is  frequently  given  the 
title  of  "  King,"  which  very  well  expresses  the 
idea  of  God  cherished  by  the  Jewish  religion.  This 
is  the  title  commonly  used  even  in  the  Psalms,  the 
Old  Testament  book  of  devotions,  where  (if  any- 
where)  a  warmer  title  might  be  expected. 

But  when  Jesus  came,  though  he  recognized  God's 
sovereignty  and  kingship,  he  revealed  a  tenderer 
side  of  God's  nature.  The  distinctive  and  charac- 
teristic title  applied  to  God  by  Jesus  is  that  of 
Father.  In  the  Gospel  report  of  Jesus'  words  we 
find  the  title  Father  used  of  God  not  much  less  than 
two  hundred  times,  to  sa^  nothing  of  many  indirect 
references  to  His  fatherhood  (as  Luke  15:11-32). 
Thus  Jesus  brought  a  new  and  better  revelation  of 
the  character  of  God,  and  gave  us  a  broad  and 
secure  foundation  for  a  warmer  and  worthier  con- 
ception of  Him.  "  No  man  hath  seen  God  at  any 
time;  the  only  begotten  Son,  who  is  in  the  bosom  of 
the  Father,  he  hath  revealed  Him''  (John  1:18). 
It  is,  of  course,  not  the  mere  title  that  is  significant, 
30 


The  Fatherhood  of  God  31 

but  the  rich  and  blessed  conception  of  God  and  His 
love  which  Jesus  meant  to  convey  by  it.  The  prac- 
tical consequences  of  this  new  and  lofty  revelation 
of  God  have  been  beyond  all  computation,  for  the 
souls  of  men  are  ineffably  elevated  and  ennobled  by 
cherishing  high  and  worthy  thoughts  regarding  the 
supreme  object  of  thought  in  the  universe  —  God. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  revelation  of  God's  father- 
hood as  new  with  Jesus,  and  so  it  was.  But  a  word 
of  explanation  will  not  be  amiss.  For  the  desig- 
nation of  God  as  "  Father  "  there  is  a  slender  Old 
Testament  basis  (see  Exod.  4:22,  Jer.  31:9,  Mai. 
2:10,  etc.).  But  this  was  not  the  customary  and 
characteristic  designation  of  God  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. Notably,  as  already  remarked,  it  was  no- 
where applied  to  Him  in  the  Old  Testament  book 
of  devotions,  the  nearest  approach  being  the  simile 
of  Ps.  103:13,  "Like  as  a  father  pitieth  his  chil- 
dren, so  the  Lord  pitieth  them  that  fear  Him." 
Moreover,  in  cases  where  the  title  was  used  in  the 
Old  Testament,  it  had  not  the  same  meaning  as  in 
Jesus'  use  of  it.  As  Schultz  says  (O.  T.  Theol.  2: 
138-139),  in  the  Old  Testament  use  of  the  title 
Father  **  nothing  more  is  implied  than  in  the  term 
*  Lord  '."  This  is  well  seen  in  such  a  passage  as 
Mai.  1 :6,  "  A  son  honoreth  his  father,  and  a  servant 
his  master;  if  then  I  be  a  father,  where  is  mine 
honor?  and  if  I  be  a  master,  where  is  my  fear?  saith 
the  Lord  of  hosts." 

Manifestly  in  the  Old  Testament  the  idea  of 
fatherhood  had  not  become  the  determining  concep- 
tion of   God,   as  it  was  with  Jesus.     His  power, 


32  The  Model  Prayer 

transcendence,  and  holiness  were  emphasized,  to  the 
comparative  neglect  of  the  attributes  connoted  by- 
fatherhood.  To  Israel  God  seemed  a  King,  not  a 
Father.  The  relation  of  men  to  Him  was  con- 
ceived of  as  legal  rather  than  filial.  It  was  re- 
served for  Jesus  to  change  all  this,  and  to  develop 
and  give  currency  to  the  conception  of  God  which 
makes  Him  a  Father,  in  all  the  rich  and  tender  sig- 
nificance of  the  term. 

But  to  us  personally  It  will  make  little  practical 
difference  that  such  a  revelation  of  God  has  been 
made,  and  such  a  tender  and  an  ennobling  concep- 
tion of  His  character  and  attitude  toward  men 
formed  and  taught  in  the  world,  unless  we  for  our- 
selves grasp  something  of  what  it  means,  and  order 
our  lives  accordingly.  It  Is  one  thing  for  the  doc- 
trine of  the  fatherhood  of  God  to  be  on  the  pages  of 
our  New  Testaments,  or  a  cherished  possession  of  the 
church  at  large,  and  quite  another  thing  for  us  per- 
sonally to  appreciate  and  cherish  and  feed  spiritually 
upon  and  be  blessed  by  this  great  and  ennobling 
conception.  If  we  could  but  rise  to  the  level  of 
Jesus'  idea  of  God,  and  live  daily  In  the  realization 
and  full  and  blessed  consciousness  that  God  is  our 
Father,  and  we  His  sons  and  daughters,  with  all 
that  such  relationship  Implies,  It  would  Ineffably 
ennoble  our  souls  and  elevate  and  enrich  our  spirit- 
ual life.  It  will  well  repay  us  to  spend  some  time 
in  reflection,  practical  soul-searching  reflection,  with 
a  view  to  subsequent  action,  upon  the  implications 
of  the  Christian  doctrine  of  the  fatherhood  of  God, 

What  did  Jesus  mean,  what  do  the  Scriptures 


The  Fatherhood  of  God  33 

mean,  in  calling  God  our  Father?  Whatever  else 
ma}^  be  involved,  certainly  the  title  constitutes  a 
revelation  of  the  attitude  and  disposition  of  God 
toward  men.  He  is  disposed  toward  men  as  a 
father  toward  his  children.  That  is,  God  is  called 
a  "  Father  "  because  He  has  a  father  s  attitude  and 
disposition  toward  us.  No  matter  how  we  change, 
or  how  His  dealings  with  us  may  have  to  vary, 
always,  ideally  and  in  infinite  perfection,  God  is 
what  a  father  is  in  heart  and  disposition.  What 
a  wonderful  thought,  how^  reassuring  and  attrac- 
tive, that  the  infinite  God,  creator  and  upholder  of 
all,  "  glorious  in  holiness,  fearful  in  praises,  doing 
wonders"  (Exod.  15:11),  feels  toward  us  as  a 
father  toward  his  children,  with  divine  pity,  divine 
sympathy  and  tenderness!  Surely  if  anything  will 
encourage  men  to  come  to  God,  this  thought  will 
do  so!  Let  us  cherish  it,  proclaim  it,  magnify  it, 
that  God,  in  His  eternal  and  changeless  Self,  has 
alwaj^s  the  disposition  and  the  heart  of  a  Father! 

Now  the  essence  of  fatherhood  is  love.  The  most 
distinctive  thing  about  God  is  love,  boundless  and 
perfect  love.  Such  love  is  not  only  His  attitude  and 
disposition,  it  is  His  nature.  God  not  only  has 
love,  he  is  love  (i  John  4:8,  16).  He  feels  toward 
us  all  the  sympathy,  all  the  pity,  all  the  tenderness, 
all  the  yearning  desire  for  our  highest  well-being  and 
happiness,  which  the  thought  of  loving  fatherhood 
implies.  The  first  great  item  of  meaning  in  the 
doctrine  of  the  fatherhood  of  God  is,  then,  that  God 
loves  us,  and  that  too,  as,  ideally,  a  father  loves. 
Beneficent,  wonderful  thought!     How  many  a  fal- 


34  The  Model  Prayer 

tering  saint  it  has  encouraged  and  sustained,  how 
many  an  erring  soul  it  has  led  like  the  prodigal  to 
the  saving  resolution,  "  I  will  arise  and  go  to  my 
father!  "  Most  beautifully  did  Jesus  in  his  teach- 
ing describe  the  fatherliness  of  God.  Not  only  are 
none  who  seek  Him  ever  turned  away,  but  with  true 
fatherly  solicitude  He  sends  forth  to  seek  and  to 
save  the  erring  and  the  lost  (Luke  15:3-7).  As 
the  sun  shines  on  all  save  those  who  shun  its  beams, 
so  the  Father  in  heaven  extends  His  benefits  and 
blessings  to  all  ( Matt.  5  145 ) .  No  man  need  lack 
these  benefits  and  blessings,  unless  he  himself  by  his 
selfishness  and  sin  excludes  them  from  his  own  heart 
and  life.  With  fatherly  love  God  will  bestow  them 
on  all  who  will  receive.  God's  fatherhood  is  more 
perfect  than  any  earthly  parent's:  "  If  ye,  being 
evil,  know  how  to  give  good  gifts  to  your  children, 
how  much  more  shall  your  Father  in  heaven  give 
good  things  to  them  that  ask  Him?"  (Matt.  7:9- 
11).  His  fatherly  care  is  greater.  He  knows  what 
things  we  have  need  of  before  we  ask  him  (Matt. 
6:8,  32)  ;  and  it  is  His  will  to  add  all  these  things 
unto  us(  Matt.  6:33).  Even  the  very  hairs  of  our 
heads  are  all  numbered ;  and  He  who  marks  the  spar- 
row's fall  will  not  neglect  the  needs  of  His  children 
(Matt.  10:29-31).  His  grace  and  forgiveness 
are  inexhaustible,  and  the  divine  Father's  welcome 
of  the  reclaimed  sinner  is  touchingly  portrayed  in  the 
beautiful  parable  of  the  earthly  father's  loving  wel- 
come of  the  returning  prodigal  (Luke  15:11-32). 
His  benevolence  is  truly  universal,  so  that  even  the 
unthankful  and  evil  share  in  the  benefits  of  His 


The  Fatherhood  of  God  35 

fatherly  goodness:  "He  maketh  His  sun  to  rise 
on  the  evil  and  on  the  good,  and  sendeth  rain  on  the 
just  and  on  the  unjust  "  (Matt.  5  :45).  The  divine 
Father  is  perfect  (Matt.  5:48),  not  grudging  and 
partial,  in  His  love.  And,  as  Jesus  taught,  those 
who  will  be  like  God,  true  children  of  the  heavenly 
Father,  must  love  and  seek  to  benefit  and  bless  all, 
even  the  unjust  and  the  evil.  To  love  only  friends 
and  favorites  is  to  remain  on  the  low  level  of 
heathen  morality  (Matt.  5:46,  47).  If  men  will 
be  "  imitators  of  God  "  (Eph.  5:1),  they  must  love 
all  men,  even  their  enemies,  and  desire  and  seek  to 
do  them  good  (Matt.  5:44,  45).  Only  so  can  they 
hope  to  become  perfect,  even  as  the  Father  in  heaven 
is  perfect  (Matt.  5:48). 

Since,  therefore,  our  God  is  a  Father,  with  a 
heart  and  a  nature  which  are  love,  divine  and  per- 
fect LOVE,  what  good  thing  can  we  lack,  unless 
indeed  in  our  selfishness  and  sin  we  ourselves  ex- 
clude it  from  our  lives  by  refusing  to  be  our 
heavenly  Father's  children!  And  what  higher 
form  of  religion  can  there  be  than  the  gospel  of 
Jesus,  at  the  basis  of  which  lie  the  idea  and  the 
fact  that  God  is  a  father,  whose  very  nature  is 
love!  Thus  the  first  and  in  a  sense  the  all-compre- 
hensive implication  of  the  Christian  doctrine  of  the 
fatherhood  of  God  is  that  God  loves  us.  Another 
precious  implication  is  that  God  will  do  all  that  is 
possible  to  seek  and  to  win  the  wayward  and  the 
wandering  ones.  Such  is  the  nature  of  fatherly 
love.  It  is  not  a  father  s  way  to  neglect  and  forget 
the  careless  or  rebellious  child,   to  simply  sit  still 


36  The  Model  Prayer 

and  let  him  go  to  ruin.  A  true  father  loves  his 
child,  and  his  heart  yearns  toward  him  even  in  his 
wa}^wardness  and  wandering,  and  impels  the  father 
to  seek  in  every  possible  way  his  restoration.  And 
so  exactly  of  the  Father  in  heaven.  He  has  a  fa- 
ther's heart,  and  loves  and  longs  for  the  wayward 
and  wandering  child.  And  in  ever>'  possible  way 
He  follows  the  wanderer  and  seeks  to  woo  and  to 
win  him  back  home  again.  What  heart  can  be  so 
rebellious  and  so  hard  as  to  resist  the  wooings  and 
pleadings  of  the  divine  Fathe/s  love?  What  mul- 
titudes the  assurance  of  that  love  has  won  back,  like 
the  prodigal,  home  again,  to  the  Father's  arms  and 
the  Father's  bosom!  That  Father  has  followed  us 
in  all  our  sinful  ways  with  manifestations  of  fa- 
therly love.  He  gave  His  own  dear  Son  to  die 
in  order  that  atonement  and  pardon  for  our  sin 
m.ight  be  provided.  He  sent  forth  His  Spirit  to 
reawaken  filial  feelings  in  our  hearts,  and  to  plead 
with  us  to  return  to  God  and  reestablish  filial  rela- 
tions with  Him.  And  through  His  word,  and  His 
church,  and  His  individual  servants,  and  a  thou- 
sand agencies.  He  has  ever  assured  and  reassured 
us  that  He  loves  us,  and  longs  for  our  presence 
among  His  loyal  children  and  in  His,  the  Father  s, 
house,  our  true  and  spiritual  home.  Verily  it  is 
but  the  simple  sober  truth  that  ''  there  is  joy  in 
heaven  over  one  sinner  that  repenteth  "  (Luke  15  :7, 
cf.  10).  For  this  repentance  means  the  restoration 
of  a  loved  but  lost  child  to  the  heavenly  Father's 
home  and  heart!      (Luke  15:32). 

A  third  implication  of  this  doctrine  is  that  God 


The  Fatherhood  of  God  37 


maintains  a  fatherly  sovereignty  over  us.  There 
is  a  natural  and  inevitable  authority  attached  to 
fatherhood.  This  authority  it  is  not  only  a  father's 
right,  but  also  his  duty,  to  exercise.  A  father 
ought  to  regulate,  to  control,  to  rule,  his  children. 
He  must  do  this  wisely,  lovingly,  patiently,  and  for 
their  good;  but  he  must  do  it,  or  fall  far  short  of 
his  duty  as  a  father.  Have  you  ever  observed  the 
life  of  a  family  in  which  for  some  reason  a  father's 
authority  was  unfelt?  What  a  loss  to  the  children 
in  such  a  family!  The  father  was  not  rendering 
to  his  children  all  that  he  owed  them.  For  chil- 
dren need  for  their  own  highest  good  to  experience 
the  authority  and  control  of  a  father  in  their  lives. 
From  such  experience  alone  can  they  learn  that 
respect  for  law  and  that  voluntary  conformity  or 
obedience  to  law  which  are  essential  to  life  and 
blessedness  in  this  law-permeated  and  law-dominated 
universe  of  ours,  a  universe  in  which  the  motto  of 
conduct  is  *'  Conform  or  perish!  "  and  in  which  the 
unregulated  and  lav/less  do  perish.  Blessed  be  the 
sovereignty  of  fatherhood,  whose  beneficent  disci- 
pline trains  us  to  be  law-respecting  and  law-abid- 
ing, and  so  fits  us  for  life  rather  than  death!  Fa- 
therhood represents  law,  authority,  firmness,  control. 
But  it  also  represents  broader  experience,  fuller 
knowledge,  better  judgment,  wisdom,  and  above  all 
love;  and  all  these  qualify  and  motive  its  sover- 
eignty and  make  it  beneficent.  And  though  at 
times  the  father's  regulation  and  control  may  seem 
irksome,  yet  the  loyal  child  is  through  it  all  glad 
from  the  bottom  of  his  heart  that  there  is  an  effi- 


38  The  Model  Prayer 

clent  and  faithful  father  there,  and  that  he  there- 
fore is  not  called  on  to  shoulder  all  the  responsi- 
bilities and  face  all  the  problems  of  his  life  alone, 
and  thus  is  not  forced  to  suffer  the  sad  lack  of  a 
father's  control  and  guidance  in  his  life.  And  hoyv 
ineffably  glad  and  grateful  we  Christians  ought  to 
be  at  the  thought  of  our  Father  in  heaven,  who 
takes  a  father's  responsibilities  and  fulfils  a  father's 
obligations  in  this  respect  also,  that  He  maintains 
a  fatherly  sovereignty  and  control  in  our  lives,  that 
He  regulates  and  rules  us,  with  infinite  wisdom  and 
divine  and  everlasting  love,  for  our  good  alwaySj 
in  order  that  we  His  children  may  experience  life 
and  blessedness,  and  be  saved  from  moral  ruin  and 
spiritual  death! 

A  fourth  implication  of  the  great  doctrine  which 
forms  our  theme  is  that  God  our  heavenly  Father, 
in  dealing  with  us  His  children,  makes  use  of  fa- 
therly discipline  and  correction.  The  very  thought 
of  fatherhood  implies  discipline  and  correction, 
which  are  at  times  the  only  means  by  which  fatherly 
sovereignty  can  be  maintained,  the  child's  conduct 
be  properly  regulated,  his  own  and  his  companions' 
moral  safety  secured,  and  his  character  rightly  de- 
veloped. And  the  heavenly  Father  is  not  such  a 
one  as  to  be  slack  or  unfaithful  here.  He  will  not 
shirk  the  unpleasant  but  essential  duty  of  disciplin- 
ing his  children.  He  is  not  one  to  spare  the  rod 
at  the  dire  cost  of  spoiling  the  child.  God  is  a 
true  and  faithful  Father.  And,  though  the  dis- 
cipline of  his  children  is  perhaps  the  most  unpleasant 
of  all  a  father's  duties,  our  heavenly  Father  does 


The  Fatherhood  of  God  39 

not  fail  us  here.  "  Whom  the  Lord  loveth  He 
correcteth,  even  as  a  father  the  son  in  whom  he 
deh'ghteth  "  (Prov.  3:12).  Indeed  the  fatherly- 
discipline  is  a  sure  token  of  sonship,  for  the  Lord 
"  scourgeth  every  son  whom  He  accepteth."  **  If 
ye  endure  chastening,  God  dealeth  with  you  as  with 
sons;  for  what  son  is  he  whom  a  father  chasteneth 
not?  But  if  ye  be  without  chastisement,  whereof 
all  have  become  partakers,  then  are  ye  bastards  and 
not  sons"  (Heb.  12:6-8).  The  heavenly  Fa- 
ther's discipline  and  correction  are  a  sure  token  of 
His  fatherly  care  and  love,  and  of  His  recognition 
of  us  as  His  children,  and  as  such  ought  to  be 
received  with  real  gratitude  and  joy.  We  must 
not  "  despise  the  chastening  of  the  Lord,  nor  faint 
when  we  are  rebuked  of  Him"  (Heb.  12:5,  Prov. 
3:11).  "We  have  had  fathers  of  our  flesh  who 
corrected  us,  and  we  gave  them  reverence;  shall  we 
not  much  rather  be  in  subjection  to  the  Father  of 
spirits,  and  live?"  **  For  they  verily  for  a  few 
days  chastened  us  after  their  own  pleasure,"  with 
imperfect  judgment  and  sometimes  perhaps  un- 
worthy motives;  "but  He,"  with  infinite  wisdom 
and  divine  fatherly  love,  always  and  only  "  for  our 
profit,  that  we  might  become  partakers  of  His  holi- 
ness "  (Heb.  12:9,  10).  And  though  "for  the 
present,"  in  the  experience  and  the  pain  of  it,  "  no 
chastening  seemeth  to  be  joyous,  but  grievous; 
nevertheless  aftervi-ard  it  yieldeth  the  peaceabl|e; 
fruit  of  righteousness  unto  them  who  are  exercised 
thereby"  (Heb.  12:11).  For  several  reasons, 
therefore,  because  they  are  a  token  of  fatherly  care 


40  The  Model  Prayer 

and  love,  because  they  are  for  our  profit  In  making 
us  partakers  of  the  divine  holiness,  and  because  they 
develop  rightness  of  character  and  of  conduct  In  us, 
and  thus  fit  us  for  life  and  blessedness,  we  are  glad 
and  grateful  for  our  heavenly  Father's  correction 
and  discipline  in  our  lives. 

A  fifth  implication  of  the  Christian  doctrine  of 
God's  fatherhood  is  that  God  our  heavenly  Father 
provides  such  training  and  education  for  His  earthly 
children  as  to  fit  them  for  their  future  lives,  and 
especially  to  develop  them  into  His  own  ethical  and 
spiritual  likeness.  It  Is  one  of  the  great  duties  of 
a  father  to  educate  his  children,  and  thus  equip 
them  for  life.  True  education  gives  us  knowledge, 
brings  us  Into  adjustment  with  our  world,  develops 
our  qualities  and  powers,  and  above  all  moulds  us 
Into  right  and  worthy  character.  And  these  things 
God  our  heavenly  Father  aims  to  do  for  us  by  the 
course  of  experience  through  which  He  leads  us. 
All  life  is  educative,  and  all  the  life  our  heavenly 
Father  will  have  us  live  Is  rightly  educative.  All 
the  circumstances  amid  which  our  lot  is  cast,  all  the 
experiences  through  which  under  His  providence 
we  are  called  to  go,  all  the  agencies  and  instru- 
mentalities and  influences,  personal  or  Impersonal, 
human  or  divine,  which  touch  and  modify  and 
mould  our  lives,  are  factors  In  the  course  of  the 
ethical  and  spiritual  education  and  training  through 
which  our  Father  in  heaven  seeks  to  have  us  ac- 
quire the  knowledge  that  we  need,  and  make  bene- 
ficent and  salvatory  adjustment  with  our  world, 
and    fully   and    richly   develop   our   capacities   and 


The  Fatherhood  of  God 


powers  of  service  and  enjoyment,  and  above  all 
mould  us  into  ethical  and  spiritual  likeness  of  char- 
acter to  Himself.  And  thus  He  seeks  to  fit  us  for 
life,  here  and  hereafter.  In  this  His  fatherly  care 
and  love  are  richly  shown.  The  uneducated  soul 
is  unequipped  for  life,  and  must  miss  much  of  life's 
best,  both  in  usefulness  and  in  enjoyment.  The 
rightly  educated  are  equipped  for  life,  whether  in 
the  form  of  service  or  of  enjoyment.  The  course 
of  training  and  education  which  God  offers  us, 
though  not  the  same  for  all  His  children  —  there 
are  different  courses  for  different  minds,  and  a 
range  of  election  for  all  —  is  such  as  to  fit  and 
equip  us  fully  and  richly  for  life,  full,  abounding, 
blessed  life.  This  education  immeasurably  en- 
hances our  possibilities  of  joy  and  of  usefulness; 
and  we  ought  therefore  with  enthusiasm  and  joy  to 
cooperate  with  our  heavenly  Father  in  making  the 
course  of  our  earthly  lives  as  strongly  educative 
and  helpful  to  us,  and  as  richly  significant  for  our 
future,  as  He  desires  and  intends  it  to  be. 

A  sixth  implication  of  God's  fatherhood  is  that 
God  makes  ample  provision  for  all  our  true  needs, 
both  present  and  future.  The  father  is  universally 
recognized  as  the  natural  provider  for  his  children. 
This  is  an  important  part  of  any  father's  duty  to 
his  children.  The  father  who  fails  to  provide  Is 
generally  regarded  with  aversion  and  contempt. 
God  as  the  perfect  Father  cannot  be  derelict  in  the 
duty  of  a  father  to  provide.  He  makes  ample  pro- 
vision for  all  our  needs.  We  do  not,  it  is  true, 
always  get  all  that  w^e  want.     Children  seldom  do. 


42  The  Model  Prayer 

It  is  not  best  for  them  that  they  should.  It  is 
likely  to  be  ruinous  to  them  if  they  do.  But  all 
our  needs  our  heavenly  Father  amply  supplies.  We 
must  distinguish  between  our  wants  and  our  real 
needs.  He  often,  for  our  good,  withholds  some- 
thing that  we  with  childish  lack  of  judgment  want. 
But  what  we  really  need  He  always  and  amply 
provides.  He  knows  what  things  we  have  need  of 
before  we  ask  him  (Matt.  6:8,  32).  Our  heavenly 
Father  feeds  the  very  birds  of  the  air;  are  not  we 
His  children  much  more  the  object  of  His  care? 
(Matt.  6:26).  "O  taste  and  see  that  the  Lord 
is  good;  blessed  is  the  man  that  trusteth  in  H'm. 
O  fear  the  Lord,  ye  His  saints;  for  there  is  no 
want  to  thejn  that  fear  Him"  (Ps.  34:8,  9). 
Truly  '*  they  that  seek  the  Lord  shall  not  want  any 
good  thing''  (Ps.  34:10).  "He  that  spared  not 
His  own  Son,  but  delivered  him  up  for  us  all,  how 
shall  He  not  with  him  also  freely  give  us  all 
things?''  (Rom.  8:32).  Amply  indeed  does  our 
heavenly  Father  make  provision  for  all  our  needs, 
material  and  spiritual,  temporal  and  eternal;  our 
present  needs  by  providential  daily  supplies,  our 
future  needs  by  the  heavenly  inheritance  of  the 
children  of  God.  And  where  we  seem  to  be  denied 
needful  supplies,  it  is  but  in  the  interest  of  His 
cause  and  kingdom  in  the  world,  and  for  our  own 
highest  good  as  well. 

A  seventh  implication  of  this  great  doctrine  of 
God's  fatherhood  is  that  God  protects  us  against 
and  delivers  us  from  all  enemies  and  evil  powers. 
This  is  a  rich  and  precious  thought  upon  which  we 


The  Fatherhood  of  God  43 

have  not  space  to  dwell,  save  to  commend  it  to 
your  thought  and  to  remind  you  that  the  father  is 
the  natural  protector  of  his  children,  and  that  the 
Scriptures  abundantly  represent  God  as  fulfilling  a 
father  s  part  in  affording  us  protection  against  and 
triumph  over  all  enemies  and  evil  powers.  For 
example,  "  The  angel  of  the  Lord  encampeth  round 
about  them  that  fear  Him,  and  delivereth  them  " 
(Ps.  34:7).  "What  shall  we  then  say  to  these 
things?  If  God  be  for  us,  who  can  be  against 
us?"  (Rom.  8:31).  He  will  unfailingly  defend 
us  against  all  hostile  powers,  even  against  the 
treacherous  evil  of  our  own  hearts,  and  in  every 
conflict  will  enable  us  to  come  off  "  more  than  con- 
querors   through    Christ   who    loved    us!"    (Rom. 

8:37)- 

The  eighth  and  last  of  the  implications  of  the 
Christian  doctrine  of  God's  fatherhood  which  can 
be  mentioned  here  is  that  God  has  a  pleasure  in 
and  a  desire  for  the  presence  and  companionship 
of  His  earthly  children.  This  is  a  wonderful 
thought,  that  God  cares  for  our  companionship! 
And  yet  it  is  divinely  true.  It  is  involved  in  the 
very  idea  of  fatherhood.  A  father  loves  his  chil- 
dren. He  misses  them  when  they  are  absent,  and 
takes  pleasure  in  their  presence  and  companionship 
on  all  appropriate  occasions.  And  so  it  is  with 
God  our  Father  in  heaven.  He  has  a  father  s 
heart,  a  father's  love,  a  father's  pleasure  in  the  com- 
panionship of  his  children.  He  loves  to  abide  in 
us  and  have  us  abide  in  Him.  He  desires  that  we 
should  have  fellowship  with  Him    (i   John   1:6), 


44  The  Model  Prayer 

and  with  one  another  (i  John  1:7),  and  daily  walk 
in  love,  as  dear  children  (Eph.  5:1,  2).  The 
Scriptures  abound  in  representations  of  our  rela- 
tions with  God  and  with  one  another  as  being  those 
of  children  with  a  father  and  with  their  brothers 
and  sisters.  Time  forbids  that  we  should  elaborate 
here  this  beautiful  and  tender  conception,  which 
likens  our  relations  with  God  and  with  one  another 
to  the  affectionate  associations  of  members  of  a 
family.  It  is  however  to  be  commended  to  your 
study  as  a  thought  which  will  give  profound  and 
touching  significance  to  the  everyday  realities  of  the 
Christian  life.  And  I  ask  you  to  try  the  practical 
plan  of  cultivating  companionship  with  our  heavenly 
Father  through  the  medium  of  prayer,  in  the  quiet 
hour  and  the  secret  place,  with  open  Bible  before 
you,  viewing  your  prayer  not  as  petition,  as  we  so 
often  do  —  a  mere  asking  for  favors,  which  is  a 
low  and  unworthy  view  of  prayer, —  but  as  a  means 
of  communion  with  God,  which  is  the  highest 
utility  of  prayer,  while  through  the  prayer  we  con- 
fer and  counsel  and  commune  with  Him,  and  He 
by  His  word  and  by  His  Spirit  talks  and  communes 
with  us,  as  a  father  with  his  children.  Beautiful, 
wonderful  experience,  in  which  He  manifests  Him- 
self to  us  as  He  doth  not  to  the  world,  and  in 
which  we  get  acquainted  with  our  Father  in  heaven, 
and  come  to  know  and  to  revere  His  will,  and  to 
realize  and  appreciate  His  love,  and  kindle  and 
intensify  an  answering  love  in  our  own  hearts!  In 
thus  seeking  His  presence  and  fellowship  we  not 
only  are  blessed,  but  by  deporting  ourselves  thus  as 


The  Fatherhood  of  God  45 

true  and  loyal  children  we  gladden  the  loving  heart 
of  our  heavenly  Father,  to  whom  our  presence  and 
companionship  are  dear. 

Thus  perfectly,  blessedly,  with  divine  love  and 
faithfulness,  does  God  our  heavenly  Father  fulfil 
all  the  duties  and  obligations  of  a  father  toward 
us.  He  is  the  perfect  embodiment,  the  acme  and 
ideal,  of  fatherhood.  Like  a  father  He  loves  us; 
seeks  our  restoration  when  we  wander;  disciplines, 
trains  and  educates  us;  beneficently  and  blessedly 
regulates  and  rules  us  and  our  lives;  provides  for 
us  and  protects  us;  and  desires  and  enjoys  our  pres- 
ence and  companionship. 

Now  in  view  of  His  loving  fatherly  faithfulness, 
what  duties  and  obligations  rest  on  us  His  earthly 
children?  Comprehensively  it  may  be  answered 
that,  as  His  are  the  duties  and  prerogatives  of  fa- 
therhood, so  ours  are  the  duties  and  obligations  of 
children.  What  these  are  is  well  known.  They 
include  affection,  reverence,  loyalty,  gratitude,  de- 
votion, obedience.  These  we  owe  to  our  Father  in 
heaven.  But  special  discussion  must  be  given  to 
one  or  two  of  the  specially  important  and  vital  of 
our  duties. 

The  first  and  really  all-inclusive  of  our  duties 
as  children  of  God  is  that  we  assume  a  filial  attitude 
toward  Him,  i.  e.,  cherish  toward  Him  the  disposi- 
tion and  attitude  which  characterize  a  true  and  loyal 
child.  The  essence  of  the  filial  attitude  consists 
in  a  beautiful  combination  of  reverence  and  love, 
two  indispensable  sentiments  of  the  true  child  heart. 
These  sentiments  are  utterly  opposed  to  all  disre- 


46  The  Model  Prayer 

spect,  all  ingratitude,  all  disobedience,  all  neglect, 
toward  our  Father  in  heaven.  If  we  have  them 
they  will  lead  us  to  honor  Him,  obey  Him,  ap- 
preciate His  goodness  and  His  greatness,  to  desire 
and  cultivate  acquaintance  with  Him,  and  to  find 
pleasure  in  His  presence  and  companionship,  as  He 
does  in  ours.  In  a  word,  our  child-heart  will 
answer  perfectly  to  His  father-heart,  and  there  will 
be  a  due  correspondence  of  sentiment  and  affection 
betv\^een  us,  and  harmony  and  unity  of  wish  and 
will,  our  wills  in  fact  lost  in  His,  and  our  aims  and 
aspirations  sanctified  and  exalted  into  unison  with 
His.  O  blessed  wonderful  spiritual  state,  in  touch 
with  God,  at  one  with  God!  To  have  companion- 
ship with  such  a  Father  is  one  of  the  high  and  holy 
rewards  of  genuine  sonship  and  daughterhood  to 
God.  And  the  blessedness  and  the  bliss  of  it  are 
so  great  that  we  cannot,  we  must  not,  for  anything 
in  the  world,  neglect  to  seek  and  to  cultivate  it  in 
our  lives. 

This  is  a  part  of  what  it  means  to  have  a  filial 
attitude  toward  God  the  Father  in  heaven.  How 
can  such  an  attitude  do  otherwise  than  lead  us  to 
revere,  to  trust,  to  love,  and  to  obey  this  gracious 
divine  Father,  and  flood  our  souls  with  an  ardent 
desire  to  fulfil  every  other  duty  toward  Him? 

But,  lofty  as  this  is,  it  is  not  all.  We  expect  the 
child  to  resemble  the  parent.  If  we  are  to  be  true 
sons  and  daughters  of  the  Lord  Almighty,  we  must 
resemble  Him  in  character.  This  is  the  highest 
implication  of  our  sonship  and  daughterhood  to  God, 
that  we  must  bear   His  likeness  in  our  character 


The  Fatherhood  of  God  47 

and  life.  Through  fellowship  with  Him  and  con- 
formity to  His  will  we  are  to  grow  in  His  image, 
to  become  holy  as  He  is  holy,  and  morally  and 
spiritually  perfect,  as  our  Father  in  heaven  is  per- 
fect (Matt.  5:48).  How  lofty,  how  wonderful, 
the  thought!  As  children  of  God,  it  is  ours  to  be 
God-like!  The  ultimate  essence  of  our  sonship  and 
daughterhood  to  Him  consists  in  bearing  His  ethical 
and  spiritual  likeness  in  our  hearts  and  manifesting 
it  in  our  behavior.  And  such  moral  likeness  is  best 
summed  up  in  our  having  a  holy  disinterested  all- 
embracing  love  such  as  God  our  heavenly  Father 
has  (Matt.  5:45,  48),  nay  rather  in  our  being  of 
the  same  disposition  and  nature  as  He,  which  are 
love!  God  our  heavenly  Father  is  the  supreme 
standard  and  model  of  ethical  perfection  in  the 
universe.  And  it  is  the  supreme  duty  of  men  to 
assume  the  filial  attitude  toward  Him,  and  to  realize 
an  ever  increasing  likeness  to  Him  in  their  charac- 
ters and  lives! 

And  now,  in  conclusion,  for  a  concrete  illustra- 
tion of  the  spirit  of  sonship  to  God  I  point  3^ou 
to  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  He  was  the  ideal  and 
perfect  son,  in  the  fulness  of  the  filial  spirit  which 
he  showed,  in  his  reverence  and  love,  his  unques- 
tioning trust  and  unstinted  obedience;  even  to 
Gethsemane  and  Calvary,  the  agony  and  shame, 
the  cross  and  the  tomb.  He  did  not  waver  an  in- 
stant from  His  Father's  word  and  will.  And 
above  all  in  resemblance  of  character  He  realized 
the  acme  and  ideal  of  sonship.  So  fully  and  per- 
fectly was  He  like  God  that  it  could  truly  be  said 


48  The  Model  Prayer 

of  Him  that  He  showed  us  the  Father  (John  14:8, 
1:18)  ;  that  He  was  the  brightness  of  His  glory  and 
the  express  image  of  His  substance  (Heb.  1 13)  ;  and 
that  he  that  had  seen  Him  had  seen  the  Father 
(John  14:9).  Sonship  cannot  go  beyond  that 
measure  of  perfection  which  consists  in  such  close 
resemblance  of  character  that  it  becomes  true  that 
he  who  sees  the  Son  also  in  effect  sees  the  Father. 
O  that  we,  who  claim  to  be  God's  children,  might 
be  so  God-like  in  character  and  spirit,  so  pure  and 
true  and  loving  and  good,  that  those  who  see  us 
would  be  reminded  of  our  Father  in  heaven !  This 
was  indeed  the  case  with  Jesus,  our  Elder  Brother 
and  our  Example  (John  13:15,  i  Pet.  2:21). 
May  we  take  Him  as  our  inspiration  and  guide  in 
our  endeavor  to  cherish  and  perfect  in  ourselves 
the  lofty  and  blessed  condition  of  true  sonship  and 
daughterhood  to  God! 


Ill 

THE  KEYNOTE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN 
LIFE 

"  He  Saved  Others,  Himself  He  Cannot  Save  " 
(Matt.  27:42) 

THE  Christian  life  is  so  comprehensive  and 
many-sided  that  what  shall  be  considered 
its  keynote  will  differ  as  we  contemplate  it  from 
different  points  of  view.  For  the  purposes  of  this 
study  may  I  ask  you  to  join  me  in  contemplating  the 
Christian  life  from  the  point  of  view  of  our  relations 
as  Christians  to  our  fellowmen.  The  attitude  of 
men  toward  one  another,  the  relations  of  men  with 
one  another,  constitute  the  subject  matter  of  one  of 
the  most  important  and  vital  departments  of  our 
holy  religion.  The  Christian  life  is  largely  con- 
cerned with  one's  feelings  toward  and  dealings 
with  his  fellowmen.  We  may  well  give  earnest 
heed  to  having  these  feelings  and  dealings  right,  for 
the  Master  gave  impressive  and  repeated  expres- 
sion to  the  truth  that  w^e  cannot  be  really  and  fully 
right  with  God  without  getting  right  with  our 
fellowmen  (e.g.  Matt.  5:23,  24,  7:12,  6:14,  15, 
18:23-35,  etc.).  The  spirit  of  Jesus'  teaching  on 
this  point  is  perfectly  epitomized  in  i  John  4:20, 
21: — "If  a  man  say,  I  love  God,  and  hateth  his 
brother,  he  is  a  liar:  for  he  that  loveth  not  his 
49 


50  The  Model  Prayer 

brother  whom  he  hath  seen,  cannot  love  God  whom 
he  hath  not  seen.  And  this  commandment  have  we 
from  him,  that  he  who  loveth  God  love  his  brother 
also."  Indeed  one  of  the  surest  tokens  of  being 
right  w^ith  God  is  found  in  earnest  and  persistent 
endeavor  to  get  right  and  keep  right  with  men. 
And,  conversely,  ii  one  persists  in  a  wrong  attitude 
toward  and  wrong  relations  with  his  fellowmen,  it 
justifies  a  suspicion  that  he  is  not  right  with  God. 
It  might  be  added  that,  according  to  the  teaching 
of  Jesus,  it  is  vain  to  try  to  get  right  with  God 
while  continuing  wrong  with  men ;  and  that  one 
of  the  most  effective  means  of  getting  right  with 
God  is  to  put  oneself  right  with  men  (the  passages 
referred  to  above  involve  this).  The  sweet  and 
fruitful  communion  and  companionship  with  God 
the  Father  in  heaven  which  we  as  Christians  must 
cultivate,  can  be  maintained  only  in  case  we  are 
earnestly  endeavoring  to  fulfil  our  duty  toward 
our  fellowmen.  Since  these  things  are  so,  it  follows 
that  we  can  very  fruitfully  contemplate  the  Chris- 
tian life  from  the  point  of  view  of  human  relations, 
and  try  to  catch  its  keynote  and  make  it  the  keynote 
of  our  lives.  Only  so  shall  we  find  ourselves  in 
harmony  with  the  Lord  Christ  and  his  Gospel. 

The  secret  of  the  Christian  life  on  its  manward 
side,  as  well  as  on  its  Godward  side,  is  to  be 
found  in  the  life  and  example  of  the  Lord  Jesus. 
In  all  human  relations,  in  all  dealings  with  his 
fellowmen,  he  lived  a  perfect  life,  and  gave  us  a 
perfect  model  for  imitation.  The  details  of  his 
life  we  cannot  of  course  fully  imitate,  for  our  lives 


The  Keynote  of  the  Christian  Life  51 

are  circumstanced  and  conditioned  differently  from 
his.  But  the  spirit  and  general  quality  of  his  life 
we  can  imitate,  and  indeed  must  imitate  if  we  are 
to  live  really  Christian  lives.  By  Jesus  and  by  his 
apostles  the  quality  and  the  spirit  of  his  life  were 
expressed  in  sayings  of  beauty  and  power,  which 
through  the  Christian  centuries  have  become  the 
motto  and  the  inspiration  of  millions  of  noble 
Christian  lives.  One  or  more  of  these  sayings  ought 
to  be  adopted  by  every  Christian  as  the  motto  of 
his  Christian  life,  to  be  reflected  on  and  lived  up 
to  as  he  endeavors  to  model  his  life  on  the  Master's 
life,  which  the  sayings  pregnantly  and  suggestively 
estimate  and  characterize.  A  number  of  such  say- 
ings will  be  quoted  in  the  course  of  this  study,  any 
one  of  which  might  be  taken  as  expressing  the  key- 
note of  the  Christian  life  in  human  relations.  In 
fact  they  all  express  essentially  the  same  thought. 
But  there  is  one  estimate  of  the  life  of  Jesus  which 
has  peculiarly  appealed  to  me  at  various  times 
through  the  years;  and  on  this  saying  chiefly,  on 
this  particular  motto  of  the  Christian  life,  I  invite 
you  to  center  3^our  thought  at  this  time. 

The  saying  I  have  in  view  was  uttered  concern- 
ing Jesus  by  his  enemies.  What  one's  enemies  say 
of  him  may  on  occasion  merit  serious  considera- 
tion. It  may  embody  their  estimate  of  his  charac- 
ter and  life.  It  may  take  its  rise  from  and  be  based 
upon  some  obvious  fact  in  his  life.  If  so,  it  will  be 
partially,  if  not  wholly,  true;  and,  so  far  as  it  is 
favorable  to  the  person  commented  on,  it  will  at 
least  be   unprejudiced  testimony.     Now,   according 


52  The  Model  Prayer 

to  the  report  in  three  of  our  Gospels,  as  Jesus  hung 
on  the  cross,  his  leading  enemies,  the  chief  priests 
and  scribes  and  elders  of  the  Jews,  derided  him, 
saying,  *'  He  saved  others,  himself  he  cannot  save  " 
(Matt.  27:42,  Mark.  15:31,  Luke  23:35).  Cer- 
tain features  of  this  saying,  in  the  sense  in  which 
Jesus'  enemies  intended  it,  such  for  example  as  the 
essential  untruth  of  one  of  its  assertions,  and  the 
nature  of  the  correspondence  between  the  thoughts 
expressed  by  its  two  clauses,  need  not  concern  us 
here.  I  have  worked  them  out  and  find  that  they 
in  no  wise  affect  the  main  line  of  thought  which  we 
are  to  follow.  But  in  passing  we  may  note  briefly 
one  interesting  and  for  our  purpose  important  point. 
In  the  first  clause  of  the  saying  we  find  a  great 
admission  made,  a  great  fact  affirmed,  concerning 
Jesus.  He  was  one  who  saved  others.  This  was 
his  enemies'  estimate  of  his  life, —  He  saved  others. 
What  they  meant  by  this  is  obvious  from  the  Gospel 
story.  He  went  about  doing  good.  He  brought 
deliverance  and  blessing  to  those  whose  lives  he 
touched.  He  lived  not  for  himself  but  for  others. 
Even  the  malignant  hate  of  his  murderers  could  not 
deny  this  patent  fact  in  his  favor.  The  worst  they 
could  do  was  to  try  to  distort  it  into  a  means  of 
discredit  and  mockery.  But  the  fact  remains,  their 
admission  stands,  surely  a  bit  of  unprejudiced  testi- 
mony, that  Jesus  in  his  life  was  one  who  saved 
others. 

But  another  aspect  of  the  matter  now  claims  our 
attention.  It  is  not  an  unexampled  thing,  either 
in  sacred  or  in  secular  history,  that  one's  enemies 


The  Keynote  of  the  Christian  Life  53 

may  unwittingly  speak  of  him  better  than  they  in- 
tend. What  Jesus'  enemies  said  of  him,  in  the 
sense  in  which  they  intended  it,  was  only  partially 
true.  But  in  a  sense  not  intended  by  them,  their 
words  were  exactly  and  sublimely  true.  In  this 
instance,  as  in  many  another,  a  sneering  enemy  has 
unconsciously  uttered  a  sublime  truth  in  favor  of 
the  one  he  sought  to  deride.  In  their  very  mockery, 
the  enemies  of  Jesus  proclaimed  his  divinely  great 
unselfishness  and  heroism.  He  who  had,  as  they 
admitted,  lived  for  others,  was  now,  as  they  failed 
to  understand,  in  very  fact  dying  for  others.  He 
who  might  have  prayed  the  Father  and  at  once  have 
received  more  than  twelve  legions  of  angels  for  his 
defense  (Matt.  26:53)  ;  He  w^ho  could  himself  by 
a  word  have  swept  his  enemies  to  destruction;  He 
from  whom  no  man  could  take  his  life,  but  who 
laid  it  down  of  himself  (John  10:18)  ;  even  He  was 
now  yielding  himself  up  freely  and  unresistingly 
to  shame  and  agony  and  death  in  order  that  he 
might  redeem  sinful  and  lost  men  from  the  death 
to  which  for  their  sins  they  were  doomed.  And 
without  this  sacrifice  on  His  part  they  could  never 
have  been  saved.  Wonderful  truth,  proclaimed  un- 
wittingly even  by  enemies!  Truly  he  saved  others, 
himself  he  could  not  save.  Just  because  he  saved 
others,  himself  he  could  not  save.  //  he  had  saved 
himself,  he  could  not  have  saved  others.  It  is  his 
chief  glory  that  he  gave  himself  for  others,  that  he 
freely  chose  to  die  in  order  that  through  his  death 
they  might  be  spared  the  death  to  which  they  were 
doomed    for   their  sins.     His   blood   on   the   cross, 


54  The  Model  Prayer 

mocked  at  in  bitter  hate  by  his  spiritually  blind 
enemies,  was  "  the  blood  of  the  new  covenant,  shed 
for  many  for  the  remission  of  sins  "  (Matt.  26:  28). 

Thus  unintentionally  in  their  mockery  of  him 
Jesus'  enemies  uttered  his  loftiest  eulog>'.  And  at 
the  same  time,  all  unwittingly,  they  struck  the  key- 
note of  his  life.  The  whole  aim  and  trend  of  his 
life  was  to  serv^e  and  benefit  others  rather  than  him- 
self. **  He  came  not  to  be  ministered  unto,  but  to 
minister,  and  to  give  his  life  a  ransom  for  many  " 
(Mark  10:45).  And  for  that  very  reason,  just 
because  he  saved  others,  he  could  not  save  himself. 

And  further,  all  unwittingly,  in  their  would-be 
mockery  Jesus'  enemies  not  only  struck  exactly  the 
keynote  of  His  life,  but  also  revealed  what  should 
be  the  keynote  of  every  Christian  life.  The  true 
Christian's  life  must  resemble  Christ's  life  in  all 
essential  respects.  It  must  have  the  same  motive, 
the  same  aim,  the  same  supreme  passion  to  aid  and 
to  bless,  the  same  keynote.  And  this,  in  final 
analysis,  is  simply  that  one  shall  live,  not  for  him- 
self but  for  others.  That  was  the  way  Jesus  lived, 
that  is  the  way  ever\^  true  follower  of  His  should 
live.  Not  for  himself,  but  for  others!  This  is  the 
supreme  law  of  Christian  sendee.  This  is  the  es- 
sential qualit}-,  the  keynote,  of  the  genuinely  Chris- 
tian life. 

"  He  saved  others,  himself  he  cannot  save."  He 
saved  others  at  and  by  means  of  the  sacrifice  of 
himself.  What  higher  praise  could  one  ask  than 
to  have  this  truthfully  said  of  him,  in  life,  or  in 
death?     If   it   could   be   truthfully  said   of   one,    it 


The  Keynote  of  the  Christian  Life  55 

would  mean  that  in  this  essential  respect,  he  was 
thoroughly  Christlike.  It  would  mean  that  he  had 
attained  the  high  honor  of  being  as  his  Master 
(Luke  6:40),  and  that  in  its  essential  quality  his 
life  was  like  Christ's  life. 

"  He  saved  others,  himself  he  cannot  save."  I 
like  to  look  at  the  mathematics  of  this  statement. 
The  law  of  quantity  controls  here.  A  human  life 
is  a  limited  thing.  There  is  only  so  much  of  it. 
And  if  you  apply  that  "  so  much  "  in  one  direction, 
you  cannot  at  the  same  time  apply  it  in  a  diverse 
direction.  A  quantity  used  for  one  purpose  cannot 
at  the  same  time  be  used  for  another.  For  instance, 
if  I  am  wasting  a  hundred  dollars  for  selfish  pleas- 
ure I  cannot  at  the  same  time  devote  that  hundred 
to  promote  the  Gospel  or  aid  the  Red  Cross.  If 
I  devote  my  time  and  energy  and  life  primarily  to 
advancing  my  own  selfish  interests,  I  cannot  at  the 
same  time  be  devoting  them  to  advancing  the  well- 
being  of  others.  One  who  lives  for  himself  cannot 
live  for  others.  This  is  mathematically  true,  ab- 
solutely certain.  Let  no  one  delude  himself  re- 
specting it,  as  I  fear  many  try  to  do.  It  was  Christ 
who  said,  "  No  man  can  serve  two  masters."  And, 
since  this  is  true,  since  a  human  life  is  a  limited 
quantity  and  when  applied  in  a  given  direction 
cannot  at  the  same  time  be  applied  in  a  diverse  di- 
rection, it  follows  that:  if  one  would  save  others, 
he  cannot  save  himself;  which  is  only  a  way  of 
saying  that  in  order  to  save  others  one  must  give 
himself. 

Let  us  pursue  this  subject  a  little  further,  in  the 


56  The  Model  Prayer 

light  of  the  example  and  the  teaching  of  Jesus,  and 
get  if  we  can  what  may  be  called  its  philosophy.  It 
seems  to  me  that  the  Master  penetrated  to  the  heart 
of  this  subject  when  He  said,  "  He  that  loseth  his 
life  shall  save  it"  (Mark  8:35).  His  own  exam- 
ple is  the  best  illustration  of  the  truth  of  his  saying. 
What  he  meant  was  that  the  real  way  to  make 
one's  life  worth  while  is  to  invest  it  in  the  service 
of  one's  felloiv?nen.  He  taught  the  same  truth  by 
the  beautiful  simile  of  the  seed  and  its  fruit.  "  Ex- 
cept a  corn  of  wheat  fall  into  the  ground  and  die,  it 
abideth  alone;  but  if  it  die,  it  bringeth  forth  much 
fruit"  (John  12:24).  The  seed  must  perish  in 
order  that  the  harvest  may  come;  but  in  the  harvest 
it  multiplies  itself  thirty,  sixty,  a  hundred-fold.  So 
it  is  with  human  lives.  Investment  of  life  in  the 
service  of  others  alone  makes  it  fruitful.  If  it  be 
not  so  invested,  "  it  abideth  alone,"  forever  alone, 
forever  unproductive,  an  unworthy,  a  practically 
valueless  thing,  destined  to  pass  into  oblivion.  The 
destiny  of  the  selfish  uninvested  life  is  to  perish  as  a 
useless  thing,  without  progeny,  without  fruition, 
unloved  and  unremembered,  as  all  useless  things 
shall  perish  at  last  from  God's  great  universe,  by 
atrophy,  by  internal  decay,  by  self-entailed  degene- 
ration and  dissolution.  "  He  that  loveth  his  life 
shall  lose  it,"  said  Christ  (John  12:25).  But  "he 
that  loseth  his  life,"  by  investing  it  in  the  service  of 
God  and  man,  *'  shall  save  it."  Such  is  the  law, 
and  so  it  is  that  the  investment  of  life  alone  makes  it 
fruitful  and  gives  it  a  future.  "  He  that  hateth  his 
life  in  this  world,"  said  Christ,  "  shall  keep  it  unto 


The  Keynote  of  the  Christian  Life  57 

life  eternal"  (John  12:25).  And  herein  lies  the 
solution  of  an  apparent  discrepancy.  The  neces- 
sary losing  of  one's  life,  the  assertion  "  himself  he 
cannot  save,"  relate  only  to  the  life  that  now  is; 
while  the  allusions  to  the  associated  "  saving  "  or 
"  keeping  "  of  one's  life  relate  to  the  life  that  is  to 
come.  In  this  world  the  law  is  that  one  must  give 
his  life,  in  order  that  he  may  attain  life  in  the  world 
to  come. 

Now,  to  sum  up,  the  investment  of  life  in  un- 
selfish and  loving  service,  the  putting  of  oneself 
into  life,  is  a  form  of  self-surrender,  of  self-sacrifice. 
He  who  thus  invests  his  life,  gives  himself.  In 
order  to  invest  our  present  lives  worthily,  we  must 
surrender  them.  If  we  are  to  save  others,  we  can- 
not, in  this  life,  save  ourselves. 

And  now,  before  illustrating  the  application  of 
this  principle  in  practical  life,  we  must  attend  to 
three  or  four  qualifying  considerations.  And  first, 
to  obviate  possible  misunderstanding,  let  it  be  noted 
that  I  am  fully  aware  of  and  have  carefully  ex- 
amined the  apparent  lack  of  exact  logical  corre- 
spondence between  the  two  clauses  of  the  saying 
about  which  our  thought  centers.  Careful  exegesis 
could  not  neglect  such  an  item.  It  is  evident  that 
no  rigidly  exact  logical  correspondence  between  the 
two  clauses  was  intended,  and  none  need  be  sought. 
The  same  term,  '*  save,"  is  used  in  both  clauses  only 
for  the  sake  of  suggesting  relation  of  the  ideas  ex- 
pressed in  the  respective  clauses.  It  is  a  general 
term,  intended  to  be  taken  in  v/hatever  specific  sense 
suits  the  thought  in  any  particular  application  of  the 


58  The  Model  Prayer 

saying.  In.  other  words,  the  sense  of  the  term 
"  save  "  in  any  given  case  is  to  be  gotten  from  one's 
knowledge  of  the  facts  involved  rather  than  merely 
from  the  term.  The  correspondence  between  the 
clause  is  rhetorical  rather  than  strictly  logical.  It 
is  just  an  artful  device  of  language,  similar  in  na- 
ture to  a  play  on  words.  Other  cases  like  it  are 
found  in  the  New  Testament,  particularly  in  the 
letters  of  Paul.  From  the  logical  point  of  view, 
though  formally  inexact,  this  mode  of  expression 
is  materially  sound  and  forceful.  And  in  that  it 
leaves  larger  scope  for  the  play  of  individual  thought 
and  feeling,  and  appeals  to  the  imagination  and 
the  emotions  as  well  as  the  reason,  it  is  more  sug- 
gestive and  stimulating  than  a  rigidly  exact  form 
of  expression  would  be, —  as  much  more  so  as  a 
bit  of  noble  poetry  or  oratory  is  more  spirit-stirring 
than  a  mathematical  formula  or  a  specimen  syllo- 
gism. This  tiresome  explanation  seemed  necessary, 
as  the  correspondence  will  be  recognized  as  being 
rhetorical  and  suggestive  rather  than  rigidly  exact 
and  logical,  throughout  the  study.  And  I  shall  feel 
free  to  substitute  other  forms  of  expression  for  the 
word  "  save  "  whenever  it  shall  seem  advantageous 
to  do  so.  In  general  we  may  say  that  practically 
the  thought  conveyed  by  the  words,  *'  He  saved 
others  himself  he  cannot  save,"  is  the  thought  of 
doing  others  good  at  the  cost  of  sacrificing  oneself, 
or,  more  simply,  giving  oneself  for  others. 

Again,  be  it  noted,  that  if  we  are  to  invest  our 
lives  worthily,  we  must  make  sure  that  our  sacrifice 
of  self  is  sane  and  judicious,  and  that  the  specific 


The  Keynote  of  the  Christian  Life  59 

object  of  the  sacrifice  is  well  worth  while.  Self- 
sacrifice  for  adequate  ends  is  wise  and  noble  and 
blessed.  But  sacrifice  of  self  for  inadequate  or  un- 
worthy ends  is  foolish  and  censurable.  Unwise 
self-sacrifice  is  a  waste  of  human  life,  the  most 
precious  thing  at  man's  disposal.  God  would  not 
have  our  precious  lives  wasted.  He  wants  them 
sacrificed,  but  not  wasted.  Jesus'  precious  life  was 
sacrificed  on  the  cross,  but  not  wasted ;  it  was  given 
to  redeeem  a  lost  world.  The  object  of  our  sacri- 
fice must  be  worth  zvhile.  *'  Whosoever  shall  lose 
his  life  for  my  sake  and  the  Gospel's,  the  same  shall 
save  it"  (Mark  8:35).  Not  wasted  lives,  but 
invested  lives,  are  what  the  Lord  wants.  Let  us 
make  this  investment  with  the  care  which  the 
precious  values  at  stake  justly  demand.  Let  us  see 
to  it  that  the  ends  for  which  we  give  ourselves  are 
adequate  and  worthy. 

Yet  again,  be  it  noted,  that  while  the  general 
end  of  the  giving  of  self  is  the  same  for  all,  i.  e., 
to  benefit  and  bless  others,  we  must  remember  that 
the  specific  objects  and  modes  and  times  of  the  giv- 
ing involve  infinite  variety  and  we  must  adjust  our 
opinions  accordingly.  For  each  individual  one  of 
us  God's  will  and  plan  are  diverse,  and  we  must 
not  try  to  run  all  in  the  same  mould.  Because 
others  do  not  invest  their  lives  for  just  the  same 
object  or  at  just  the  same  time  or  in  just  the  same 
manner  as  we  do  we  must  not  jump  to  the  con- 
clusion that  they  are  not  investing  at  all.  We  must 
not  make  the  mistake  of  supposing  that  because 
certain  others  are  not  doing  just  the  work  that  we 


6o  The  Model  Prayer 

are  doing,  they  are  not  doing  anything.  There  are 
diversities  of  gifts  and  corresponding  diversities  of 
service.  Christ  is  our  judge,  and  to  Him  alone  we 
are  answerable  for  the  investment  of  our  lives. 
"  Who  art  thou  that  judgest  another  man's  servant? 
To  his  own  master  he  standeth  or  falleth  "  (Rom. 
14:4).  We  may  well  give  due  heed,  according  to 
the  grace  which  Christ  supplies,  to  make  our  own 
investment  of  life  and  service  all  it  ought  to  be, 
and  not  concern  ourselves  unduly  about  the  specific 
object,  the  manner,  and  the  time,  of  our  neighbor's 
investment;  for  the  choice  of  time  and  manner  and 
object  lies,  by  Christ's  appointment,  in  the  power 
of  each  individual  Christian.  It  is  a  part  of  each 
individual's  own  God-given  sovereign  personal  right 
to  make  his  own  choice,  a  right  with  which  others 
must  not  unduly  concern  themselves. 

And  yet  again  be  it  noted,  that  we  must  avoid 
limiting  the  application  of  the  saying  about  which 
our  discussion  centers  to  cases  in  which  the  self- 
sacrifice  involves  immediate  death.  Such  cases  are 
after  all  exceptional  and  comparatively  few.  The 
extent  of  the  immediate  sacrifice  depends  on  the 
nature  of  any  given  case.  Sometimes  death  is  in- 
volved, as  in  the  case  of  Christ  whence  the  saying 
arose.  But  in  the  majority  of  instances  the  sacrifice 
is  not  so  sudden  and  tragic,  but  more  gradual  and 
commonplace.  But  it  may  be  none  the  less  real 
and  heroic  because  gradual.  Where  sudden  and 
sharp,  the  struggle  lasts  less  long;  but  where  grad- 
ual and  quiet  it  puts  one  to  the  strain  of  life-long 
self-denial.     In   such   cases,    which    are   much    the 


The  Keynote  of  the  Christian  Life  6 1 

more  common,  the  length  of  the  trial  compensates 
for  its  lack  of  tragic  sharpness,  and  may  make  it  in 
reality  more  severe  as  a  test  of  character  and  devo- 
tion,—  especially  so  as  the  excitement  and  applause 
of  the  more  dramatic  struggles  are  lacking,  and  as 
there  is  abundant  time  for  reflection  and  realization 
of  what  the  sacrifice  costs  in  the  way  of  self- 
deprivation  and  self-surrender.  Thus  all  sacrifice 
of  self  for  others  is  beautiful  and  heroic,  no  matter 
how  the  various  instances  may  differ.  And  we 
must  not  think  of  our  saying  as  applicable  only  to 
the  cases  of  sudden  tragic  sacrifice  involving  im- 
mediate death.  These  are  truly  worthy  of  all 
honor.  But  there  are  literally  millions  of  cases  in 
quite  ordinary  life  where  it  is  true  of  men  and 
women  that  for  Christ's  sake  they  are  saving  others 
at  the  cost  of  giving  themselves.  Such  cases  of 
quiet  unapplauded  Christian  heroism  are  far  com- 
moner than  we  think.  We  should  have  eye  open 
and  heart  ready  to  discover  and  honor  them  when- 
ever found.  It  would  not  be  anything  exceptional 
if  unsuspected  cases  existed  among  our  humblest 
acquaintance  and  friends. 

When  it  comes  now  to  illustration  of  the  prac- 
tical working  of  this  principle  of  giving  self  for 
others,  we  find  superabundant  materials  afforded  by 
life  about  us  on  every  hand.  Of  only  a  few  con- 
spicuous classes  of  self-sacrifices  for  others  can 
mention  be  made.  First,  consider  the  case  of  par- 
ents. In  many  instances,  it  is  true,  parents  live  on 
with  little  effective  attention  to  the  duties  of  par- 
enthood, and  little  real  sacrifice  for  the  sake  of  their 


62  The  Model  Prayer 

children.  But  in  a  host  of  cases,  especially  in  mod- 
est Christian  homes,  if  we  could  get  at  the  facts, 
we  should  find  parents  surrendering  without  a  mur- 
mur all  their  own  personal  ambitions  and  longings 
in  order  to  give  their  children  education  and  other 
advantages,  and  start  them  fully  abreast  of  their 
times  and  with  no  handicap  in  the  life-race  before 
them.  Many  a  father  realizes  that  he  must  give 
up  all  thought  of  a  future  for  himself  if  he  is  to 
do  his  full  duty  by  his  children,  and  devotes  himself 
to  toil  day  and  night  for  their  sakes,  in  order  that 
they  may  be  better  equipped  and  have  a  better  start 
in  life  than  he  had,  until  it  becomes  too  late  for 
him  ever  to  realize  any  of  his  own  fond  personal 
ambitions.  And  to  many  a  mother  the  days  are 
but  one  weary  succession  of  monotonous  toil  year 
after  year,  cooking,  dish-washing,  mending,  clean- 
ing, hanging  out  clothes,  planning  and  scrimping  and 
sacrificing,  surrendering  her  own  longings  for  ease 
and  travel  and  culture,  growing  worn  and  old,  and 
all  for  the  sake  of  her  boys  and  girls,  in  order  that 
they  may  have  the  advantages  that  never  came  and 
never  can  come  to  her,  and  may  thereby  be  better 
prepared  for  winning  and  holding  a  worthy  place 
in  the  world.  Such  sacrifice  is  not  commendable 
unless  it  is  necessary;  but  in  many  cases  it  is  neces- 
sary if  the  children  are  to  have  an  advantageous 
start  in  life.  No  doubt  there  are  millions  of  fa- 
thers and  mothers  in  our  own  and  other  lands  who 
are  acting  just  that  way,  and  making  just  that 
sacrifice,  today.  And  of  them  all  our  saying  is 
true.     They  are  saving  others,  themselves  they  can- 


The  Keynote  of  the  Christian  Life  63 

not  save.  They  are  rendering  a  royal  service  to  the 
world  at  the  sacrifice  of  themselves.  Through 
their  well-trained  and  thoroughly  prepared  sons  and 
daughters  they  are  making  an  immense  contribu- 
tion to  the  future  betterment  of  the  world  and  ad- 
vancement of  civilization  and  of  the  kingdom  of 
God.  God  alone  can  estimate  the  greatness  of  their 
service  to  their  fellowmen,  and  the  greatness  and 
preciousness  of  its  cost  to  these  humble,  toilworn, 
uncomplaining  fathers  and  mothers.  In  its  great- 
ness their  sacrifice  is  heroic,  titanic!  It  is  like  the 
Christ,  who  gave  himself  to  save  a  world ! 

Again,  we  might  take  the  case  of  the  devoted 
Christian  teacher,  who  wears  himself  or  herself  out 
in  moulding  pupils'  characters  and  preparing  them 
for  life,  and  whose  chief  service  is  not  the  giving 
of  instruction,  but  the  giving  of  self;  for  the  true 
teacher  above  all  imparts  himself  to  his  students  and 
spends  himself  for  them.  Or  we  might  describe 
the  quiet  Christ-like  service  of  the  faithful  Christian 
physician,  as  is  so  beautifully  done  by  Ian  Maclaren 
in  Beside  the  Bonny  Briar  Bush,  under  the  title 
*'  A  Doctor  of  the  Old  School."  Or  consider  the 
application  of  this  principle  of  unselfishness,  of  liv- 
ing not  for  self  but  for  others,  to  the  life  of  nations 
as  well  as  of  men,  and  combatting  thereby  the 
unchristian,  wholly  barbarous,  doctrine  that  "  the 
State  "  has  no  obligations  save  such  as  are  dictated 
by  self-interest,  a  doctrine  which  for  more  than 
three  years  now  has  filled  the  world  with  blood  and 
sorrow,  and  which  must  surely  be  an  abomination 
in   the  sight  of   the  merciful   God.     Why   indeed 


64  The  Model  Prayer 

should  not  nations  as  well  as  individuals  have  the 
Christian  ideal,  and  the  Christian  program  of  living 
and  working  rather  for  the  welfare  of  the  world 
than  for  their  own  selfish  profit  and  aggrandize- 
ment? Just  as  our  own  great  country  lost  nothing 
in  greatness,  or  in  standing  among  her  sister  na- 
tions, by  her  generous  and  wholly  disinterested 
treatment  of  Cuba  and  China,  and  other  countries, 
in  recent  times.  But  space  forbids  elaboration  of 
these  points  here,  and  leaves  us  room  for  only  two 
more  illustrations. 

The  first  of  these  is  the  Christian  patriot,  who 
gives  himself  for  his  country.  Patriotism  is  one  of 
the  purest  and  noblest  passions  of  the  human  heart. 
In  its  unselfish  and  exalted  character,  love  of  coun- 
try is  akin  to  love  of  God.  He  who  is  actuated 
by  it  seeks  not  his  own  welfare,  but  the  welfare  of 
his  country.  This  is  true  in  times  of  peace,  when 
disinterested  statesmanship  and  pure  citizenship  are 
so  sorely  needed.  But  in  times  of  war,  as  now, 
all  the  smoldering  fires  of  love  of  country,  which 
ordinarily  may  lie  latent  in  the  heart,  burst  into 
leaping  flames  and  impel  to  prompt  and  heroic  ac- 
tion. And  this  is  preeminently  true  of  young  men, 
whose  adolescent  souls  are  aflame  with  passionate 
love  of  country.  And  at  such  times  they  say,  as  we 
have  heard  so  many  of  our  own  boys  say  in  the  last 
few  months:  *'  I  must  ofFer  myself  to  my  coun- 
try." And  with  pure  and  exalted  devotion  these 
adolescent  youth  go  forth  in  defense  of  home  and 
country  and  human  liberty,  sacrificing  time  and 
education  and  opportunity  and  position  and  all  per- 


The  Keynote  of  the  Christian  Life         65 

sonal  advantage  at  home,  imperilling  health  and 
limb  and  life  for  the  land  they  hold  dear  and  for 
lofty  visions  of  liberty  and  justice  among  the  na- 
tions; by  their  sacrifice  securing  for  others,  yea  for 
generations  yet  unborn,  rights  and  liberties  which 
they  may  never  have  known  and  may  not  live  to 
enjo3^  Often  indeed  is  it  sublimely  true  of  the 
patriot  that  *'  he  saves  others,  himself  he  cannot 
save."  God  bless  our  boys  who  do  this!  Most  of 
them  we  trust  will  in  due  time  return  and  take 
their  place  among  us  in  carrjang  on  the  work  of  the 
world.  All  honor  to  them  for  what  they  do  in 
behalf  of  country  and  human  rights  and  liberty, 
though  their  sacrifice  may  be  less  in  extent  than 
that  of  some  others.  For  there  will  be  many  who 
will  not  return.  Their  sacrifice  will  be  of  full 
extent.  They  will  be  called  on  to  give  ''  the  last 
full  measure  of  devotion."  They  will  be  listed 
among  the  martyrs  of  patriotism,  who  laid  down 
their  lives  for  the  sake  of  liberty  and  country. 
They  will  earn  and  hold  our  gratitude  forever. 
Time  will  not  weary  them,  nor  the  years  make 
them  old.  They  shall  live  in  our  thought  forever 
young,  as  they  were  in  the  bloom  of  their  manhood 
when  they  left  us  on  their  heroic  errand ;  even  as 
Christ  dwells  forever  in  the  thought  of  the  world 
as  a  young  man,  cut  off  untimely  in  the  midst  of  his 
years,  it  is  true,  but  forever  enshrined  in  grateful 
and  loving  memory  as  a  young  man  who  gave  him- 
self to  save  others.  Of  all  of  these  whom  we  thus 
love  and  honor  it  is  profoundly  and  grandly  true 
that  they  save  others^  themselves  they  cannot  save. 


66  The  Model  Prayer 

And  because  of  this  they  are  worthy  of  our  undying 
gratitude  and  admiration. 

Finally,  what  application  has  this  keynote  of  the 
Christian  life  to  the  Christian  ininisterf  Of  all 
men  the  Christian  minister  is  one  who  must  plan 
his  life  as  a  life  of  service.  He  must  dethrone 
self,  in  order  to  make  room  for  devotion  to  others. 
He  must  view  life  as  opportunity  to  bless  men  in 
Christ's  name  and  for  Christ's  sake.  Every  real 
Christian  must  do  this;  but  the  Christian  minister 
in  a  peculiar  degree.  The  projects  he  forms  in  the 
Interest  of  his  personal  life  must  be  held  subject  to 
modification  or  surrender,  if  need  be,  in  the  in- 
terest of  the  work  he  has  to  do  for  others.  His 
central  life-controlling  concern  must  be,  not  self- 
advancement,  but  the  benefitting  of  his  flock.  It 
is  his  to  perform  all  the  duties  of  a  pastor,  a 
shepherd,  of  his  people.  In  all  his  multifarious 
service,  the  Christian  minister  is  one  who  lives  not 
for  self  but  for  others.  Like  Paul,  he  will  very 
gladly  spend  and  be  spent  for  them  (2  Cor.  12:15). 
Like  Peter,  he  will  feed  the  flock  of  God,  not  by 
constraint  but  willingly,  not  for  filthy  lucre  but  of 
a  ready  mind,  not  as  a  lord  over  God's  heritage  but 
an  ensample  to  the  flock  (i  Pet.  5:2,  3).  Like 
John,  he  will  conclude  that  as  the  Lord  laid  down 
his  life  for  us,  we  also  ought  to  lay  down  our  lives 
for  the  brethren  (i  John  3:16).  And  like  the 
Master  himself,  he  will  feel  that  he  is  one  whose 
business  it  is  not  to  be  ministered  unto  but  to  minis- 
ter, and  to  give  his  life  for  others.  Truly  the 
Christian  ministry  calls  us  to  a  beautiful,  heroic, 


The  Keynote  of  the  Christian  Life  67 

Christlike  service,   that  of  saving  others  by  giving 
ourselves! 

And  so  of  all  the  heroes  of  Christian  service. 
They  save  others  bj^  giving  themselves.  And  this 
attitude  and  ability  ought  to  be  cultivated  and 
nurtured  from  youth  up.  Devotion  to  the  inter- 
ests of  others  is  a  grace  to  be  developed  and  made 
intense  and  habitual  only  by  long  cultivation.  It 
comes  to  full  maturity  only  by  years  of  growth,  and 
all  the  time  demands  due  nurture  and  exercise. 
No  one  need  fear  he  will  begin  this  nurture  too 
early.  So  I  urge  you,  my  reader,  begin  now  and 
make  it  one  of  the  chief  aims  of  your  life  to  culti- 
vate the  spirit  and  the  habit  of  living  for  others. 
Look  upon  whatever  advantages  you  seek  for  your- 
self in  education  and  culture  —  and  I  would  have 
you  make  these  as  full  and  rich  as  possible  —  as 
designed  ultimately  to  enhance  your  service  to 
others.  Esteem  the  attainments  you  make  in  the 
course  of  your  education  chiefly  as  means  of  render- 
ing yourself  more  eflficient  in  life,  and  therefore 
more  useful  to  others.  From  the  habit  of  looking 
for  and  improving  opportunities  to  be  of  service 
to  your  associates  day  by  day,  in  order  that  in  the 
future  you  may  the  more  readily  see  and  the  more 
tactfully  and  effectively  act  upon  such  opportunities 
for  sen^ice  as  life  may  throw  in  your  way  then. 
In  seeking  the  presence  and  companionship  of  your 
Lord  in  the  quiet  hour,  do  so  partly  with  the  thought 
that  you  must  know  Him  well  because  you  are  to 
lead  others  to  Him.  And  when  you  engage  in 
prayer  let  intercession  and  pleading  for  others  have 


68  The  Model  Prayer 

due  place,  as  well  as  petitions  for  self.  Strive  to 
abandon  utterly  the  natural  self-regarding  attitude 
of  unsanctified  human  nature,  and  make  the  Christ- 
like other-regarding  attitude  of  the  mature  Christian 
character  your  own.  Seek  to  have  "  the  heart  at 
leisure  from  itself,  To  soothe  and  sympathize " ; 
and  to  be  in  yourself  a  living  benediction  to  all 
about  you.  Pray  the  Lord  not  merely  to  give  you 
a  blessing,  but  to  make  you  a  blessing.  Develop  the 
disposition  and  the  habit  of  giving  yourself,  sanely 
and  judiciously,  but  really  and  fully,  for  others. 

And  now,  in  conclusion,  let  us  consider  that  the 
law  of  this  principle  which  we  are  studying  doini- 
nates  all  human  life.  No  one  is  exempt  from  its 
operation.  It  pervades  individual,  social,  national, 
and  religious  life.  Everywhere  and  for  every  one 
the  price  of  the  high  and  heroic,  and  of  all  that  is 
really  worth  while,  is  the  giving  of  self.  He  who 
would  save  others  cannot  save  himself.  He  who 
saves  himself  cannot  save  others.  In  view  of  the 
law  of  quantity  which  rules  in  human  life  (see 
above),  the  "cannot"  is  absolute.  There  is  no  es- 
cape from  the  domination  of  this  divinely  appointed 
law. 

I  have  often  wondered  what  glory  Jesus'  de- 
riders,  who  ridiculed  him  because  having  saved 
others  he  could  not  save  himself,  thought  would 
come  to  a  man  on  basis  of  the  fact  that  he  saved 
himself  and  therefore  could  not  save  others.  This 
is  the  converse  of  our  principle,  the  tragic  truth 
that  he  who  saves  himself,  cannot  save  others. 
How  would  you  like  that  kind  of  a  record  to  go 


The  Keynote  of  the  Christian  Life         69 

on  the  monument  at  your  grave,  as  the  epitome  of 
your  life's  history:  He  saved  himself,  others  he 
could  not  save!  How  would  such  an  epitaph  com- 
mend one  to  the  memor>^  of  mankind  ? ! !  Better 
the  cross  with  Jesus,  than  such  a  record,  and  such 
a  memory! 

How  little  life  is  really  worth,  unless  it  is  in- 
vested in  the  promotion  of  some  great  and  worthy 
cause,  such  as  makes  it  contribute  to  the  well-being 
of  one's  fellowmen  and  the  onward  march  of  the 
kingdom  of  God !  The  wwinvested  life  is  the  talent 
laid  up  in  a  napkin  by  the  slothful,  ignoble  soul 
whose  one  object  in  life  is  to  make  self  safe,  re- 
gardless of  what  becomes  of  others.  Invest  your 
life,  my  reader,  surrender  it  to  God  in  the  loving 
service  of  your  fellowmen,  and  you  will  clothe  it 
with  worth  and  beauty,  and  transfigure  it  into 
something  honorable  and  heroic.  Nay  more, —  and 
herein  lies  a  divine  paradox,  Christ-taught  and 
Christ-exemplified, —  by  thus  giving  your  life  you 
will  make  it.  Self-renunciation  for  the  sake  of 
others  is,  after  all,  the  divinely  appointed  way  of 
self-realization.  This  is  the  reivard  of  the  un- 
selfish and  Christ-like,  who  give  their  lives,  their 
very  selves,  for  others.  It  is  all  summed  up  in  the 
Master's  own  words:  "He  that  saveth  his  life 
shall  lose  it;  but  he  that  loseth  his  life  for  my  sake 
and  the  Gospel's,  the  same  shall  save  it."  God 
grant  to  you,  my  reader,  the  grace  for  such  sur- 
render, and  the  joy  of  such  reward! 


IV 

LIFE'S  RECORD 

"  What  I  Have  Written  I  Have  Written  " 
John  19:22 

THE  trial  of  Christ  was  over.  The  long  strug- 
gle between  Jewish  hate  and  Roman  law  was 
at  an  end,  and  Jewish  hate  was  victorious.  The 
Roman  governor,  notwithstanding  the  fact  that 
Philo  describes  him  as  "  inflexible  in  character,"  had 
yielded  at  length  to  the  importunity  of  the  priests 
and  the  rabble,  and  against  all  his  convictions  of 
justice  and  humanity  had  given  sentence  in  accord- 
ance with  their  wishes.  The  innocent  Jesus  was 
led  away  by  the  rude  soldiery  and  the  gloating  mob 
to  be  crucified.  Now  it  was  that  Pilate,  angry  with 
himself  for  his  vacillation,  angry  that  he  had 
yielded  to  the  demands  of  the  Jews  whom  he  de- 
spised, seized  the  opportunity  to  mock  and  insult 
them  by  posting  on  the  cross  of  their  innocent 
victim  the  words,  *'  This  is  the  King  of  the  Jews." 
These  words  were  written  in  Hebrew  and  Greek 
and  Latin,  the  three  best  known  languages  of  the 
province,  and  proclaimed  to  every  passerby  that  this 
friendless  Galilean,  perishing  by  this  most  painful 
and  ignominious  death,  was  to  be  regarded  as  king 
of  the  Jews  —  such  a  king  only  could  they  claim 
as  theirs.  Stung  by  the  mockery  and  sarcasm  of 
70 


Life's  Record  71 


this  superscription,  certain  of  them  hastened  to 
Pilate,  and  urged  him  to  change  the  title  so  as  to 
put  the  stigma  not  on  them  but  on  Jesus.  But  the 
governor  haughtily  answers,  "  What  I  have  written 
I  have  w^ritten."  That  is  the  end  of  the  matter. 
The  title  shall  stand  as  originally  drafted.  In  this 
minor  point,  at  least,  Pilate  will  display  his  firm- 
ness and  gratify  his  odium  for  the  Jew. 

Thus  much  the  words  meant  as  they  dropped 
from  the  lips  of  the  Roman.  But  in  the  sight  of 
God  and  in  the  light  of  history  they  have  a  far 
deeper  significance.  Of  his  deeds  that  morning 
Pilate  might  have  said  "  What  I  have  written  I 
have  written."  He  was  making  a  record,  which 
was  to  stand  against  him  for  all  time.  In  all  the 
remaining  story  of  his  life  there  is  no  such  im- 
portant entry  as  that  he  made  when  he  failed  to 
deliver  the  guiltless  Christ  from  the  hand  of  his 
enemies.  No  doubt  Pilate  was  a  competent  enough 
governor  in  his  way.  He  knew  what  was  just  and 
right  on  this  occasion,  and  was  disposed  to  do  it. 
But  he  was  not  of  the  stuff  of  which  heroes  are 
made.  And  when  confronted  with  the  threat  of 
the  Jews  that  they  would  accuse  him  of  unfaithful- 
ness to  the  emperor;  when  thus  his  own  personal 
interests  and  safety  were  at  stake;  he  forsook  the 
cause  of  justice,  and  let  wrong  and  hate  triumph. 
It  is  beyond  question  that  in  condemning  Jesus 
Pilate  deliberately  and  wilfully  acted  against  the 
demands  of  his  conscience  and  his  office.  He  knew 
what  was  right,  but  for  selfish  and  cowardly  reasons 
failed    to   stand    firm    for   the   right.     When   con- 


72  The  Model  Prayer 

fronted  by  this  great  moral  emergency,  he  dismally 
failed.  And  so  the  record  of  that  April  morning, 
scrawled  hideously  but  in  giant  letters  across  the 
scroll  of  time,  proclaims  to  each  succeeding  genera- 
tion forever  the  cowardice  and  shame  of  the  vacillat- 
ing time-server  who  for  his  own  unworthy  and 
selfish  ends,  and  in  violation  of  all  the  convictions 
of  his  heart  and  obligations  of  his  office,  surren- 
dered the  guiltless  Jesus  to  the  brutal  will  of  those 
who  were  thirsting  for  his  blood.  What  an  op- 
portunity Pilate  had  to  make  a  record  of  glory, 
had  he  but  stood  firm  in  defense  of  the  innocent. 
But  how  far  he  fell  below  the  possibilities  of  that 
hour!  A  record  of  weakness,  injustice,  dishonor! 
Himself  identified  with  a  mob  of  murderers!  His 
hands,  despite  all  his  washing,  imbrued  forever  with 
the  blood  of  the  Son  of  God!  Yes,  what  he  had 
written  he  had  written.  That  record  was  not  to 
be  changed  or  effaced.  That  record  pursued  him 
through  his  life.  That  record  has  forever  deter- 
mined his  place  in  history  and  in  the  estimation 
of  mankind.  His  after  years  were  hapless  enough. 
A  few  years  later  he  was  deposed  from  the  procura- 
torship  of  Judea,  and  sent  to  Rome  to  answer 
charges  of  misconduct  in  office.  And  there  he  drops 
from  sight,  so  far  as  well  authenticated  report  is 
concerned.  He  seems,  however,  to  have  been  un- 
successful in  his  attempt  to  defend  himself,  and 
tradition  reports  that  he  was  banished  to  Vienne  in 
Gaul.  Eusebius,  the  "  Father  of  Church  History," 
who  wrote  early  in  the  fourth  century,  in  his  His- 
toria  Ecclesiae,  Book  H,  chapter  7,  on  the  authority 


Life's  Record  73 


of  certain  unnamed  Greek  historians,  tells  us  that 
in  the  reign  of  Caligula,  eight  or  ten  years  after 
the  death  of  Christ,  Pilate  fell  into  such  misfortunes 
that  at  last  in  despair  he  put  an  end  to  his  own 
life.  Tragic  record,  traced  in  blood!  Inefface- 
able, unalterable!  What  Pilate  had  written  he  had 
written. 

But  has  it  never  occurred  to  you  that  these  words 
of  the  Roman  governor  would  be  true  on  the  lips 
of  any  one  of  us?  Have  you  never  thought  that 
this  little  sentence  contains  a  universal  truth  re- 
garding the  members  of  the  human  family?  Like 
Pilate,  we  are  all  writing  our  record.  On  the  spot- 
less pages  of  that  book  of  possibilities,  which  God 
gave  us  when  He  gave  us  life,  we  are,  each  of  us 
for  himself,  every  day  tracing  out  our  own  record. 
When  we  act  or  when  we  refuse  to  act;  when  we 
speak  or  when  we  refrain  from  speaking;  when  we 
think  or  when  we  drown  thought  in  frivolous  pas- 
time: the  lines  of  that  record  are  still  being  regis- 
tered faithfully  and  unerringly.  Be  we  busy  or 
idle,  talking  or  silent,  waking  or  sleeping,  still  the 
record  goes  down  on  the  page,  where  it  will  stand 
forever  to  our  honor  or  our  shame.  At  the  end  of 
every  day  we  may  well  look  back  over  the  hours, 
whatever  may  have  been  our  occupation,  and  say 
"  What  I  have  written  I  have  written." 

To  begin  with,  certain  minor  observations  are  to 
be  made  respecting  this  record.  ( i )  The  nature 
of  the  record.  It  embodies  a  history  of  our  activi- 
ties in  life.  Our  record  is  the  product  of  our  do- 
ing.    Our  conduct,  viewed  as  the  history  of  a  life. 


74'  The  Model  Prayer 

is  our  record.  (2)  Observe  that  this  record  Is  of 
our  own  making.  No  one  else  writes  it  for  us. 
You  make  your  record,  I  make  my  record.  What 
some  one  else  has  done  is  never  a  part  of  our  record. 
Others'  good  deeds  are  never  transferred  to  our 
record,  our  ill  deeds  are  never  shifted  to  their 
record.  God's  moral  universe  is  guilty  of  no  false 
book-keeping.  You  may  have  your  record  as  clean 
and  honorable  as  you  like,  for  it  is  of  your  own 
7iiaking.  (3)  Observe  also  that  this  record  is  self- 
recording.  The  acts  that  are  recorded  are  aWays 
and  only  our  own;  but  we  have  no  option  as  to 
their  recording,  if  we  do  them.  As  we  act  or 
think,  in  whatever  way,  that  very  moment  the  deed 
records  itself.  You  have  seen  the  self-recording  in- 
struments in  use  at  our  weather  stations.  The 
needle  charged  with  ink  rests  continually  on  the 
registering  sheet,  which  is  driven  under  it  by  clock- 
work; and  let  the  mercury  but  rise  or  fall  the 
slightest  bit,  or  the  wind  shift  its  bearing  a  few 
degrees,  and  lo,  the  fact  is  recorded  for  the  reading 
of  the  observer,  and  of  all  the  world,  for  that  mat- 
ter. So  the  record  of  our  lives  is  self-registering. 
The  scroll  on  which  we  are  to  write  is  driven  past 
us  steadily  by  the  wheels  of  time;  and  as  it  glides 
by  the  mysterious  finger  of  our  personal  being,  sensi- 
tive to  every  act  and  word  and  thought,  even  to  our 
wavering  sentiments  and  moods,  records  them  all 
unerringly,  for  the  reading  of  God  and  ourselves 
and  all  men.  Do  what  we  will,  we  cannot  prevent 
the  recording  of  our  deeds.  They  register  them- 
selves at  the  moment  they  are  done.     The  only  way 


Life's  Record  75 


we  can  prevent  the  recording  of  discreditable  deeds 
in  our  record,  is  to  refrain  from  doing  them.  (4) 
Observe  in  addition  that  this  record  is  complete. 
Nothing  is  omitted.  It  includes  everything  we 
have  ever  done.  The  deeds  of  shame  are  there,  as 
well  as  the  deeds  of  honor.  The  secret  acts  of  the 
midnight  hour  are  as  faithfully  and  as  fully  re- 
corded as  the  acts  done  in  the  public  square  at  noon- 
day. The  most  hidden  and  best  concealed  thoughts 
and  purposes  of  the  heart  are  as  plainly  written  as 
the  overt  acts  vaunted  before  high  heaven.  There 
is  no  exception.  You  and  I  have  no  option  in  this 
matter.  Every  act,  whatever  its  character,  is  in- 
effaceably  registered  in  the  record  of  our  life.  No 
resistance,  no  concealment,  no  pleading,  can  avail 
to  withhold  the  hand  that  writes.  Not  one  syllable 
can  be  suppressed, —  no,  not  one,  though  we  implore 
and  supplicate  with  tears  of  blood.  Our  record  is 
a  book  which  contains  not  only  the  absolute  and 
faultless  truth,  but  all  the  truth,  concerning  our 
deeds  in  life.  It  is  complete  in  every  detail,  and 
we  can  only  say  "  What  I  have  written  I  have  writ- 
ten." 

And  here  we  turn  to  some  of  the  weightier  truths 
concerning  this  record. 

I.  This  record  is  for  each  of  us  inevitable. 
Something  must  be  written.  How  Pilate  tried  to 
escape  the  making  of  a  record  regarding  Christ! 
How  he  strove  to  shift  the  responsibility  to  others! 
He  sends  Jesus  to  Herod,  hoping  thus  to  be  rid  of 
the  matter;  but  Jesus  is  returned  to  him.  He  pro- 
poses to  compromise  by  scourging  Jesus,  as  a  means 


/: 


76  The  Model  Prayer 

of  appeasing  the  popular  Indignation,  after  which 
he  will  let  him  go;  but  the  people  wildly  cry 
"  Away  with  this  man."  He  appeals  to  the  custom 
of  releasing  a  prisoner  at  the  feast,  hoping  that 
Jesus  would  be  chosen;  but  the  people  choose  Bar- 
abbas.  He  solemnly  washes  his  hands  before  the 
multitude,  thus  symbolically  shifting  the  guilt  of 
innocent  blood  to  them  (as  if  he  could  really  shift 
it!)  ;  but  they  accept  that  guilt  with  the  cry  "  His 
blood  be  on  us  and  on  our  children."  Pilate  then, 
after  scourging  Jesus,  brings  the  patient  sufferer 
forth,  wearing  the  purple  robe  and  crown  of  thorns, 
so  meek,  so  helpless,  so  wretched,  in  the  hope  of 
exciting  compassion  in  the  popular  heart;  but  they 
cry  **  Crucify  him,  crucify  him."  So  all  is  vain. 
No  subterfuge  can  avail.  Pilate  must  make  his 
record.  And  he  did  make  it.  And  there  it  stands, 
as  enduring  as  the  word  of  God  which  can  never 
pass  away: — "and  he  gave  sentence  that  it  should 
be  as  they  required  " ;  '*  and  he  delivered  Jesus  to 
be,,crucified." 

"  It  is  a  solemn  thing  to  die.  But  is  it  not  a  far 
more  solemn  thing  to  come  into  life?  Birth  brings 
us  into  existence,  from  which  as  immortal  spirits 
we  can  never  get  out.  Being  alive,  we  must  live. 
And  as  we  live,  life's  moral  emergencies  will  come 
to  us  (as  to  Pilate),  and  we  cannot  escape  the  issue. 
Decision  must  be  made,  some  course  must  be  chosen. 
So,  as  we  live,  it  is  inevitable  that  our  record  should 
be  made.  Write  something  we  must.  It  may  be 
a  record  of  honor,  or  of  dishonor;  of  kindness,  or 
of  cruelty;  of  fidelity,  or  of  falsehood.     It  may  be 


Life's  Record  77 


a  record  of  right  action,  or  of  wrong  action,  or  of 
no  action;  a  record  of  speaking  when  we  should 
have  been  silent,  or  of  being  silent  when  we  should 
have  spoken.  But,  whatever  its  character,  it  must 
be  made.  Thus  life's  record  is  for  each  of  us  in- 
evitable. We  make  it  as  we  live  day  by  day. 
Could  we  realize  this,  surely  we  should  be  more 
careful  what  it  is  we  are  writing  there. 

2,  Some  of  the  entries  in  this  record  of  ours  are 
of  supreme  importance.  The  great  mass  of  our 
record,  it  is  true,  is  made  up  of  ordinary  events. 
For  the  most  part,  our  lives  consist  of  the  common- 
place and  unimportant;  and  the  bulk  of  our  record 
is  made  up  of  the  insignificant  and  uninteresting 
occurrences  of  every-day  life.  In  most  lives  the 
days  are  very  much  alike :  —  the  common  round  of 
duties,  the  habitual  acts  and  experiences,  are  run 
through,  and  the  day  is  over;  and  its  record  is 
simple  and  commonplace.  Yet  I  would  not  un- 
duly minimize  the  importance  even  of  the  humdrum 
of  everyday  life.  For  in  the  aggregate  these  com- 
mon events  may  take  on  an  immense  significance 
for  the  formation  of  habits  and  otherwise  in  the 
moulding  of  character  and  the  preparing  of  the  soul 
for  its  hours  of  crisis.  It  is  true,  however,  that  the 
days  in  which  something  striking  occurs,  the  days 
in  which  great  moral  emergencies  are  to  be  faced, 
are  in  most  lives  few.  Pilate  was  called  on  to 
judge  Christ  only  once  in  all  his  life.  His  life, 
like  ours,  was  largely  commonplace.  His  record, 
also  like  ours,  contained  only  a  few  entries  of  ex- 
traordinary import  for  himself  and  for  the  world. 


78  The  Model  Prayer 

Over  the  greater  part  of  our  record  we  can  look 
back  tranquilly  and  say  without  emotion,  *'  What 
I  have  written  I  have  written." 

But  this  is  true  and  can  be  true  only  of  the 
common  and  insignificant  in  our  lives.  Our  record 
will  contain  at  least  occasional  entries  of  supreme 
importance.  These  are  made  in  the  supreme  mo- 
ments of  life,  the  moments  of  moral  emergency  and 
crisis.  Such  times  must  be  faced  by  us  all  at  various 
points  in  the  course  of  our  lives.  However  tranquil 
and  commonplace  our  lives  may  for  the  most  part 
be,  there  come  moments  to  every  one  of  us  when 
happiness  and  destiny  are  trembling  in  the  balance. 
Such  was  the  hour  when  Pilate  was  called  upon  to 
act  as  the  judge  of  Christ.  No  such  opportunity 
would  ever  come  to  him  again.  His  decision  then 
would  affect  his  whole  future,  would  color  all  the 
remainder  of  his  life.  It  was  a  question  of  his 
relation  to  integrity,  to  justice,  to  truth.  Would 
he  be  true  or  false  to  the  demands  of  right  and  the 
deepest  convictions  of  his  nature?  Would  he  con- 
sent to  the  murder  of  the  persecuted  Jesus,  whom 
he  had  pronounced  innocent?  But  more  than  this 
was  true.  Pilate  was  called  upon  to  decide  his  own 
personal  relation  to  the  mysterious  being  before 
him,  who  evoked  wonder  and  awe  and  fear  even 
in  his  pagan  heart.  And  when  the  decision  had 
been  made;  when  the  act  of  weakness  and  injustice 
and  savage  cruelty  had  been  consummated ;  what  a 
record  went  down  against  Pilate,  publishing  to  all 
generations  forever  his  infamy.  And  this  record 
not  only   determined   his   reputation   and   place   in 


Life's  Record  79 


history,  but  forecast  his  destiny.  In  the  record 
made  that  April  morning  one  who  could  interpret 
life's  deep  laws  might  have  read  a  prophecy  of 
Pilate's  end. 

Just  such  supremely  important  entries  must  be 
made  in  our  records.  And  they  will  color  and  de- 
termine all  that  follows.  The  great  decisions  and 
the  great  events  in  our  lives  determine  all  the  rest. 
The  country  you  select  for  your  home;  the  business 
or  profession  you  choose  to  pursue;  the  social  al- 
liances you  make  and  maintain :  —  these  are  im- 
portant decisions,  which  of  themselves  largely  de- 
termine what  the  rest  of  your  life  is  to  be.  So 
your  answer  to  the  moral  and  spiritual  questions 
life  asks  you;  the  attitude  you  assume  toward  truth 
and  temperance  and  purity;  the  relation  which  you 
decide  shall  subsist  between  you  and  Christ :  — 
these  are  matters  of  supreme  importance.  They 
color  all  the  less  important  features  of  your  life. 
They  determine  the  general  trend  of  action  and 
character  for  you.  They  long  beforehand  prophesy 
your  future  and  fix  your  destiny.  These  supreme 
decisions  make  or  mar  your  life.  And  in  your 
record  they  will  ever  stand  out,  as  if  written  in 
letters  of  fire,  the  first  thing  to  strike  upon  your 
attention  and  the  attention  of  the  world.  And  in 
them  will  be  found  the  clue  to  a  just  estimate  of 
your  character  and  a  just  measure  of  your  life. 

3.  This  record  of  ours  is  written  in  personal 
character  and  personal  destiny.  It  is  a  record  in 
the  souls  of  men.  In  our  own  being  and  the  being 
of  others,  there  it  is  that  our  conduct  is  registered. 


8o  The  Model  Prayer 

Pilate  found  it  so.  That  act  of  cowardly  injustice 
wrote  itself  deep  in  his  heart,  and  marred  the 
destiny  of  his  life.  And  the  baleful  influence  spread 
to  all  connected  with  that  tragic  scene,  and  stamped 
itself  on  heart  and  life.  None  were  ever  the  same 
again.  Pilate  was  a  changed  man;  though  per- 
chance it  did  not  at  once  appear  to  the  world,  it  was 
apparent  to  the  eye  of  God.  And  in  his  after-life 
and  miserable  end  it  became  evident  to  all.  Those 
priests  were  never  the  same  again,  seared  and  hard- 
ened by  that  stupendous  act  of  hate  and  wickedness. 
Their  destiny  too  was  changed.  On  their  heads 
now  rested  the  awful  curse  of  their  own  impreca- 
tion: **  His  blood  be  on  us  and  on  our  children." 
And  this  was  true  of  the  mass  of  the  Jewish  na- 
tion. They  might  have  been  the  chosen  of  God: 
but  their  own  conduct  sealed  them  for  destruction. 
In  the  hearts  and  the  destiny  of  that  generation  the 
record  was  written. 

Our  record  is  written  in  our  own  hearts.  Our 
conduct  becomes  a  part  of  ourselves.  Our  deeds 
record  themselves  indelibly  in  our  character.  We 
become  what  we  do.  The  causal  influence  of  con- 
duct must  not  be  lost  from  view.  "  I  am  what  I 
am  because  I  have  been  doing  what  I  have  been 
doing."  Or  in  the  words  of  the  profound  Spanish 
proverb:  "Every  man  is  the  son  of  his  own 
works."  Ah,  could  we  but  realize  before  a  deed 
is  done  how  it  will  stamp  itself  upon  our  souls  and 
become  a  part  of  us  forever!  Good  deeds  give  our 
souls  a  trend  and  inclination  toward  good,  and 
write   themselves   in   our   hearts.     And   sin   writes 


Life's  Record  8 1 


itself  in  our  souls  as  it  imprints  itself  on  our  faces. 
You  remember  how  in  Hawthorne's  weird  story  the 
sin  of  Arthur  Dimmesdale  wrought  a  scarlet  A  in 
the  flesh  over  his  heart.  To  know  what  we  have 
done  men  need  but  consider  what  we  are.  The  wise 
can  read  this  record.  It  is  infallible,  it  is  as  plain  as 
the  sunlight.  When  we  search  our  own  hearts  and 
interpret  the  story  of  our  life  recorded  there,  we 
may  again  say,  ''  What  I  have  written  I  have 
written." 

But  our  record  is  not  confined  to  our  own  char- 
acter and  destiny.  It  is  written  also  in  the  character 
and  destiny  of  others.  Oh,  this  mystery  of  personal 
influence,  by  which  we  are  so  linked  one  with  an- 
other! Our  deeds  sink  into  other  souls  and  go  to 
determine  other  lives.  The  character  and  destiny 
of  the  soul  dearest  to  us  may  be  determined  by  our 
acts.  Our  record  will  be  written  there.  How  the 
deeds  of  parents  write  themselves  in  the  lives  of 
their  children!  How  the  conduct  of  husband  or 
wife  engraves  itself  on  the  soul  and  reveals  itself 
in  the  destiny  of  the  life-mate!  How  the  influence 
of  friend  on  friend  proclaims  the  character  and  acts 
of  him  who  exerts  the  influence!  Herein  we  are 
our  brother's  keeper.  What  is  it  we  will  write  in 
the  quivering  tablet  of  his  heart?  Our  record, 
written  in  his  soul,  goes  to  mould  his  character  and 
determine  his  destiny.  God  grant  you  may  never 
know  the  agony  of  reading  your  own  influence  in 
the  life  of  some  loved  one  to  whom  you,  all  unwit- 
tingly, it  may  be,  have  been  a  curse!  Bitter,  hope- 
less grief!     And  on  the  other  hand  God  grant  you 


82  The  Model  Prayer 

the  joy  of  reading  your  record  as  a  record  of  blessing 
in  many  lives! 

4.  This  life-record  of  ours  is  unalterable.  An 
entry  made  there  can  never  be  erased,  or  changed  in 
any  way.  A  deed  once  done  can  never  be  undone. 
It  matters  not  how  thoughtlessly  or  how  impulsively 
we  may  have  acted.  The  deed  done  in  a  moment 
of  anger,  the  hasty  word,  the  unreflecting  thought, 
are  all  recorded  as  exactly  and  faithfully  as  the  light 
prints  a  face  on  the  photographic  plate;  and  the 
record  is  there  to  stand  unchanged  forever. 

Cain  could  not  call  back  the  spirit  to  the  breast 
of  his  murdered  brother.  Ahab  could  not  restore 
life  to  the  bruised  and  broken  body  of  Naboth. 
Judas  could  not  change  the  fact  that  he  had  sold  his 
Lord  for  thirty  pieces  of  silver.  Pilate  could  not 
clear  his  record  of  the  infamy  of  his  having  con- 
demned an  innocent  and  holy  man  to  a  terrible  death. 
Nor  could  Moses  erase  from  his  life-story  the  anger 
which  dishonored  God  at  the  waters  of  Meribah. 
Nor  could  David  undo  his  sin  of  adultery  and  mur- 
der. Nor  could  Peter,  with  all  his  penitence  and 
bitter  tears,  wash  out  the  record  of  his  denial  of 
Christ.  These  men  could  only  groan,  in  hopeless 
remorse  or  grateful  godly  penitence,  "  What  I  have 
written  I  have  written." 

When  we  sin,  the  record  against  us  is  ineffaceable. 
The  sin  may  be  forgiven ;  but  it  must  alwaj^s  remain 
a  part  of  our  spiritual  history.  No  man  can  change, 
God  himself  cannot  change,  a  fact  of  history.  The 
deed,  once  done,  slips  from  our  power.  The  past 
is   irrevocable,   unalterable.     It   has   flowed   beyond 


Lifes  Record  83 


our  control,  it  is  gone,  into  the  eternal  years,  bearing 
with  it  our  record  of  honor  or  of  shame.  Solemn 
thought!  How  it  ought  to  withhold  us  from  sin! 
How  it  ought  to  restrain  our  unreflecting  careless 
haste!  How  it  ought  to  banish  all  frivolity  from 
our  minds!  All  we  have  ever  done  is  unalterably 
and  forever  a  part  of  our  record.  "  What  we  have 
written  we  have  written." 

5.  This  record  of  ours  is  to  form  the  basis  of  our 
judgTuent.  We  are  told  in  the  word  of  God  that 
we  shall  be  judged  according  to  that  we  have  done, 
whether  it  be  good  or  evil.  This  is  true  even  of  the 
present  life.  In  the  eyes  of  men  we  are  judged 
according  to  our  deeds.  Though  the  verdict  may 
temporarily  var>^  from  the  truth,  it  is  ultimately  cor- 
rect. This  human  judgment  is  always  correct  when 
our  record  is  fully  known  and  fully  understood. 
There  is  no  other  basis  for  rational  judgment.  The 
world  will  judge  of  us  according  to  our  record. 

But  there  is  another  judgment  to  which  conscience 
and  revelation  teach  us  to  look  forward ;  and  there, 
too,  our  record  will  be  the  basis  of  the  judicial  de- 
cision. When  we  shall  be  called  before  the  great 
white  throne,  and  before  Him  who  sitteth  thereon, 
before  whose  face  earth  and  heaven  will  flee  away; 
when  all  the  nations  of  the  earth  shall  be  gathered, 
and  the  sea  and  death  and  hell  shall  give  up  their 
dead;  when  they  shall  all  come  with  us,  both  small 
and  great,  and  stand  before  God ;  when  the  books 
SHALL  BE  OPENED,  and  all  of  us  judged  according  to 
the  things  which  are  written  therein:  then  will  it 
make  no  difference  whether  we  have  recorded  good 


84  The  Model  Prayer 

or  evil,  as  we  shall  review  our  unalterable  past  in  the 
light  of  eternity,  and  the  soul  shall  whisper  to  itself 
in  deep  inward  murmurs,  *'  What  I  have  written  I 
have  written!  "  Happy  those  who  make  their  rec- 
ord now  with  that  dread  hour  of  destiny  in  view! 
For  from  this  record  of  ours  we  can  never  flee  away. 
In  our  memory  and  in  our  character  we  shall  bear 
it  with  us  to  heaven,  or  to  hell! 

And  now  to  gather  up  the  practical  lessons  of  our 
theme.     These  differ  to  the  young  and  to  the  old. 

You  who  are  still  young,  I  beg  of  you  to  take 
warning.  While  the  pages  in  the  book  of  your 
life's  possibilities  are  still  largely  unwritten,  and 
white  and  clean  as  God  gives  them,  remember  that 
you  can  live  your  life  and  write  these  pages  only 
once;  and  therefore  make  the  record  fair  and  clean 
as  you  go.  For  you  can  never  live  your  life  over 
again.  You  can  never  erase  a  wrong  record,  once 
it  has  been  made.  You  can  never  substitute  a 
worthier  entry  in  its  place.  Once  a  thing  is  past, 
it  can  never  be  changed,  but  becomes  unalterably 
and  forever  a  part  of  your  record. 

"  The   moving    finger   writes ;    and   having   writ, 
Moves  on ;  nor  all  your  piety  nor  wit 
Shall  lure  it  back  to  cancel  half  a  line, 

Nor  all  your  tears  wash  out  a  word  of  it." 

All  this  is  true, —  profoundly,  terribly  true. 
Dear  young  friends,  try  to  realize  it  and  act  upon  it 
while  still  the  page  of  life  lies  fair  and  white  before 
you.  God  grant  you  earnestness  and  wisdom  to 
beware  nf  writing  in  the  book  of  your  record  any- 


Life's  Record  85 


thing  that  will  ever  cause  you  or  any  one  else  grief 
or  shame!  And,  equally,  God  grant  you  the  nobility 
of  soul  that  will  lead  you  to  aspire  to  fill  your  record 
with  the  good  and  noble.  But  remember,  you  can 
do  this  only  by  filling  your  life  with  good  and  noble 
deeds.  You  cannot  have  one  thing  in  your  life 
and  another  in  your  record.  The  only  way  to  get 
good  and  noble  deeds  into  your  record  is  to  do  such 
deeds  day  by  day,  as  life  brings  you  opportunity. 
So,  in  an  adapted  form  of  Charles  Kingsley's  words, 
I  urge  you: 

"Be  good,  young  friend,  and  let  who  will  be  clever; 
Do  noble  things,  not  dream  them,  all  day  long; 
:  And  so  make  life,  death,  and  the  vast  forever, 
One  glad,  sweet  song." 

For  us  who  are  older  the  practical  lesson  must  be 
somewhat  different.  The  pages  of  our  life-book  are 
already  mostly  written.  Some  of  us  have  few  pages 
left  on  which  to  write  before  we  go  hence  to  face 
the  record  of  our  lives  at  the  bar  of  divine  judgment. 
Our  past  is  what  it  is.  What  we  have  written  we 
have  written.  That  past  we  cannot  alter  now ;  not 
even  God  can  alter  it.  It  was  once  in  our  power, 
but  it  is  so  no  longer.  It  simply  is  what  we  have 
made  it,  and  must  forever  so  remain.  But  in  spite 
of  this  profound  and  terrible  truth,  there  are  for  us 
a  number  of  lines  of  comfort  and  of  hope. 

One  of  these  is  that  whatever  of  good  our  past 
contained  is  forever  a  part  of  our  record ;  and  no  one 
can  ever  rob  us  of  it.  The  good  in  our  lives  is  re- 
corded   as   inevitably   and   unalterably   as   the   evil. 


86  The  Model  Prayer 

The  record  is  just  and  complete.  All  the  good  we 
have  ever  done  is  unfailingly  there  to  our  credit. 
In  this  thought  we  may  find  comfort. 

Another  line  of  comfort  for  us  is  found  in  the 
fact  that  the  evil  we  have  done,  though  ineffaceable 
and  unalterable,  and  wholly  beyond  our  power,  may 
be  left  to  God.  There  has  been  much  of  evil  in 
every  human  life,  and  though  we  now  deplore  it 
we  cannot  blot  it  from  our  record,  but  realize  with 
grief  and  shame  that  it  must  stand  forever  as 
a  part  of  our  spiritual  history.  And  yet  we 
have  to  remind  ourselves  that  the  past  is  God's, 
and  we  must  simply  leave  it  to  Him.  We  our- 
selves cannot  do  anything  with  the  evil  of  our 
past,  except  to  leave  it  to  God.  That  is  the  only 
thing  we  can  do  with  it ;  and  that  is  the  thing  to  do 
with  it. 

But,  when  we  leave  it  to  God,  what  can  He  do 
with  it?     He  cannot  in  any  way  alter  the  facts;  but 

(i)  On  the  basis  of  the  atonement  which  He 
himself  provides  He  can  forgive  that  evil,  and  bring 
us  into  reconciliation  with  himself,  thus  saving  us 
completely  from  its  guilt  and  condemnation.  He 
is  one  who  pities  and  forgives  like  a  Father. 
Though  our  sin,  like  that  of  Judah,  be  writ- 
ten with  a  pen  of  iron  and  with  the  point  of  a  dia- 
mond (Jer.  17:1),  God  has  pledged  himself  that,  if 
we  seek  pardon  in  His  Son,  He  will  remember  this 
sin  against  us  no  more  (Jer.  3i:3i-34>  Is.  38:17). 
He  will  judge  us  only  by  the  Lamb's  book  of  life 
(Rev.  20:12,  15),  if  our  names  are  but  written 
there. 


Life's  Record  87 


(2)  Through  some  divinely  instituted  chain  of 
causation  He  can  save  us  and  others  from  the  natural 
and  (without  His  intervention)  inevitable  conse- 
quences of  our  evil.  Every  evil  deed  is  a  cause, 
which  inaugurates  a  series  of  results,  each  in  its 
turn  becoming  a  cause;  and  through  this  chain  of 
natural  causation  our  evil  deeds  would  naturally 
and  inevitably  bring  evil  consequences  to  us  or  to 
others,  did  not  God  intervene  and  prevent.  He 
alone  can  break  the  chain  and  avert  the  consequences 
which  derive  from  and  have  their  point  of  origin  in 
our  evil.  And  w^e  may  pray  Him  and  trust  Him 
to  do  this. 

(3)  By  sovereign  divine  power,  and  through  the 
m^'stery  of  heaven's  own  alchemy,  He  is  able  to  bring 
good  out  of  our  evil,  and  constantly  does  so.  Though 
this  is  no  credit  to  us,  for  our  sin  was  sin,  yet  the 
thought  of  God's  turning  it  to  good  may  comfort 
us.  So  the  wickedness  of  Joseph's  brethren  in  selling 
him  into  Eg>'pt  was  used  by  God  for  good  (Gen. 
50:20).  And  so  the  envy  and  hate  of  the  wicked 
Caiaphas,  the  treachery  of  Judas,  and  the  cowardice 
of  Pilate,  were  instrumental  in  bringing  about  the 
crucifixion  of  Jesus,  i.e.,  his  atoning  death  on  the 
cross;  and  so  by  the  determinate  counsel  and  fore- 
knowledge of  God  (Acts  2:23),  out  of  the  most 
awful  crime  in  the  world's  history  He  brought  about 
the  world's  redemption.  So  in  the  sins  which  have 
marred  the  record  of  our  hves  God  may  find  a 
means  of  accomplishing  good,  though  how  this  can 
be  we  may  not  understand ;  and  in  this  thought  and 
hope  we  may  find  comfort. 


The  Model  Prayer 


(4)  But  more  than  this  is  true.  Despite  the  sins 
of  our  past  the  present  is  still  by  divine  gift  ours. 
God  turns  for  us  the  leaves  of  our  book,  and  gives 
us  each  day  a  new  vrhite  page  on  which  to  write. 
It  is  worse  than  idle  for  us  to  waste  the  present 
time  in  vain  regrets  over  the  unalterable  past.  Like 
the  anguish-stricken  soul  in  the  drama  we  may  cry, 
"  Oh,  God,  turn  back  the  universe  and  give  me  yes- 
terday." Vain  prayer!  The  wheels  of  time  turn 
backward  never.  The  past  is  irrevocable,  unalter- 
able. Our  record  there  simply  is  what  it  is,  and 
must  forever  so  remain.  We  cannot  turn  back  and 
rewrite  yesterday's  page.  Why  should  we  try? 
The  past  is  God's;  let  us  leave  it  to  Him.  The 
present  is  ours;  let  us  give  all  our  energy  to  the 
white  clean  page  that  lies  before  us  today,  and  strive 
to  have  naught  written  there  but  good.  We  need  all 
our  strength  and  wisdom  adequately  to  meet  the 
duties  of  today,  and  make  its  record  fair  and  clean. 
God  help  us  this  to  do,  with  chastened  trusting 
hearts,  while  to  Him  we  leave  our  changeless  past 
with  all  its  sorry  record,  and  to  Him  the  oncoming 
eternal  future  of  our  souls,  with  the  judgment  and 
the  destiny  that  await  us  there.  Though  we  have 
much  to  do  with  the  making  of  our  future,  its  ulti- 
mate issues  are  in  God's  hands.  Only  the  present 
is  ours,  remember;  the  future  and  the  past  are 
God's.  And  may  the  thought  that  they  are  in  our 
heavenly  Father's  power  and  keeping  bring  heavenly 
comfort  to  our  souls ! 

And  now  in  conclusion  let  me  emphasize  this 
thought  of  the  new  record.     You  cannot  change  an 


Life's  Record  89 


evil  past;  but  you  can  forsake  it  for  a  better  future. 
Having  left  our  past  to  God,  in  the  belief  and  the 
hope  that  He  will  forgive  its  evil,  and  save  us  and 
others  from  its  consequences,  and  even  bring  good 
out  of  evil,  we  may,  indeed  if  sincere  we  must,  for- 
sake our  evil  past  forever,  and  begin  to  write  a  new 
and  holy  record,  the  record  of  a  reformed  and  re- 
deemed life,  in  which  by  divine  grace  evil  is  absent 
and  good  triumphant,  a  record  of  salvation  to  us, 
and  of  blessing  to  others,  and  of  glory  to  God! 
Only  in  such  a  record  will  there  hereafter  be  no 
terror  for  us  as  we  think,  "  What  I  have  written  I 
have  written." 


V 

PATHWAY  AND  GOAL 

An  Exposition  of  Matt.  7:13,  14 

Hear,  O  my  son,  and  receive  my  sayings;   and  the  years 

of  thy  life  shall  be  many. 
I  have  taught  thee  in  the  way  of  wisdom ;  I  have  led  thee 

in  right  paths. 
When  thou  goest,  thy  steps  shall  not  be  straitened;   and 

when  thou  runnest,  thou  shalt  not  stumble. 
Enter  not  into  the  path  of  the  wicked,  and  go  not  in  the 

way  of  evil  men. 
Avoid  it,  pass  not  by  it,  turn  from  it,  and  pass  away. 
There  is  a  way  which  seemeth  right  unto  a  man,  but  the 

end  thereof  are  the  ways  of  death. 
Let  thine   eyes   look   right  on,   and    let  thine  eyelids   look 

straight  before  thee. 
Ponder  the  path  of  thy  feet,  and  let  all  thy  ways  be  estab- 
lished. 
Turn  not  to  the  right  hand  nor  to  the  left:  remove  thy 

foot  from  evil. 
The  way  of  the  wicked  is  as  darkness:  they  know  not  at 

what  they  stumble. 
But  the  path  of  the  just  is  as  the  shining  light,  that  shineth 

more  and  more  unto  the  perfect  day. 
Enter  ye  in  at  the  strait  gate:  for  wide  is  the  gate,  and 

broad    is   the   way,    that    leadeth   to   destruction,    and 

many  there  be  which  go  in  thereat: 
Because  strait  is  the  gate,  and  narrow  is  the  way,  which 

leadeth  unto  life,  and  few  there  be  that  find  it. 

HOW  eagerly  men  strive  to  pierce  the  veil  which 
hides  the  future  from  their  gaze,  and  to  catch 
a  glimpse  of  the  outcome  of  their  lives !     Great  sums 
90 


Pathway  and  Goal  91 

are  paid  to  the  diviner  and  the  fortune-teller  every 
year.  And  yet  what  advantage  could  there  be  in 
knowing  that  a  certain  destiny  awaits  one,  meted  out 
to  him  as  it  were  by  fate,  if  he  himself  could  do 
nothing  to  help  or  hinder  its  coming?  And  the  for- 
tune-teller's forecast  is  a  mere  fake  message,  or  at 
the  best  a  shrewd  guess. 

There  is,  however,  a  sure  method  of  forecasting 
one's  future.  That  may  be  readily  calculated  by  ob- 
serving the  course  in  life  which  he  is  following.  We 
may  thus  know  his  future,  if  he  continues  to  follow 
that  course.  This  is  not  only  the  sure,  but  also 
the  merciful  and  the  practical  method  of  forecasting 
futures,  for  it  gives  one  a  chance  of  choice  as  to 
what  his  future  shall  be,  and  puts  it  in  his  power  to 
avoid,  or  secure  for  himself,  a  given  destiny.  This 
is  the  Scripture  method  of  fortune-telling,  intel- 
ligible, reasonable,  merciful,  infallible,  based  on  pro- 
found and  inflexible  principles,  or  laws  of  life,  w^hich 
cannot  be  broken  or  set  aside.  This  method  of  for- 
tune-telling, which  may  be  called  the  Christian 
method,  finds  one  of  its  forms  of  statement  in  the 
words  of  Jesus  which  serve  as  the  basis  of  this  study. 

These  words  of  Jesus,  and  the  other  Scripture  pas- 
sages which  stand  at  the  head  of  this  study,  are 
confirmed  by  the  experience  of  mankind  through 
all  the  ages.  Indeed  they  are  at  least  in  part  an  out- 
growth of  that  experience;  and  are  in  profound  and 
vital  accord  w^ith  the  facts  of  human  life.  In  them 
a  vast  amount  of  wisdom  and  shrewd  observation 
is  crystallized.  They  teach  three  or  four  important 
principles,  which   absolutely   dominate   life   and   its 


92  The  Model  Prayer 

destinies.  These  principles  are  now,  each  in  its 
turn,  to  form  the  subject  of  our  thought. 

I.  The  first  principle:  One's  pathway  or  course 
in  life  determines  his  goal  or  destiny.  This  goal  or 
outcome  of  life  is  but  a  natural  result,  of  which  the 
course  of  life  is  the  cause.  There  is  the  same  fateful 
connection  between  a  given  course  in  life  and  its 
corresponding  destiny  as  there  is  between  a  cause 
and  its  effect.  Causes  issue  in  effects,  pathways  in- 
evitably lead  somewhere.  And  not  only  so,  but  as 
a  cause  can  produce  only  its  appropriate  effect,  so 
a  pathway  can  lead  only  to  its  own  proper  goal. 
The  way  that  leads  to  the  wilderness  does  not  con- 
duct one  to  the  city.  What  one  shall  arrive  at  de- 
pends on  the  course  he  follows.  For  pathway  deter- 
mines goal. 

This  principle  is  so  evidently  true  that  it  may 
fairly  be  called  axiomatic.  Indeed  it  must  at  first 
thought  be  obvious  to  all.  It  need  not  then  be 
dwelt  upon,  except  for  the  sake  of  emphasizing  its 
practical  importance,  w^hich  unfortunately  many  do 
not  sufficiently  realize.  An  obvious  truth  will  be  of 
little  use  to  one,  unless  he  is  sufficiently  impressed  by 
it  to  act  conformably  to  it.  Multitudes  who  desire 
to  arrive  at  the  right  goal  are  pursuing  ways  which 
can  never  lead  thereto,  and  thus  are  acting  as  if  they 
failed  to  perceive  the  obvious  and  necessary  connec- 
tion between  pathway  and  goal.  Hence  our  first 
principle  needs  to  be  emphasized.  It  is  of  immense 
practical  importance.  It  lies  at  the  basis  of  many 
of  the  vital  and  fateful  facts  and  relations  of  human 
life.     The  success  and  the  happiness  of  men  depend 


Pathivay  and  Goal  93 

on  wisely  taking  this  principle  into  account  in  the 
ordering  of  their  lives.  To  the  thoughtless  it  is  a 
message  of  warning,  to  the  earnest  a  message  of 
guidance  and  encouragement.  To  turn  us  from 
wrong  ways,  to  induce  us  to  enter  and  persevere  in 
right  ways,  it  needs  to  be  impressed  upon  us  all  re- 
peatedly and  with  profound  solemnity  that  the  out- 
come of  our  lives  depends  upon  our  pathway,  and 
that  our  course  in  life  determines  our  destiny. 

II.  The  second  principle:  Men  do  not,  as  a  rule, 
directly  choose  their  destiny,  they  only  choose  the 
pathway  that  leads  to  it.  This  is  the  way  Christ 
presents  the  choice  in  the  words  that  form  the  basis 
of  our  study.  He  does  not  say  that  men  directly 
choose  "  destruction  "  or  "  life,"  but  they  choose  the 
broad  or  the  narrow  way,  respectively,  which  leads 
thereto.  In  so  presenting  the  case  He  is  eminently 
true  to  human  nature.  The  majority  of  men  are 
too  thoughtless,  too  lacking  in  foresight,  to  look  far 
ahead  and  make  their  choice  of  a  distant  destiny 
directly.  Who  is  going  to  peer  far  down  the  future, 
and  regulate  his  present  choices  by  thoughts  of  a 
destiny  twenty  or  thirty  or  fifty  years  distant?  That 
would  be  high  wisdom,  truly;  but  it  were  vain  to 
expect  such  a  course  from  the  majority  of  men. 
The  present  interest  is  too  attractive,  the  present 
enjoyment  too  alluring,  to  be  sacrificed  for  the  sake 
of  anything  so  remote  as  a  far-off  dimly-perceived 
destiny.  The  pleasures  of  the  way  absorb  attention 
so  fully  that  few  men  give  thought  to  the  goal  to 
which  the  way  must  lead.  Thus  men  as  a  rule 
choose  the  way  rather  than  the  destiny,  failing  to 


94  The  Model  Prayer 

realize  that  in  choosing  the  way  they  are  also  choos- 
ing the  destiny.  This  must  be  why  so  many  choose 
badly.  For  what  is  at  present  the  most  attractive 
way  may  lead  at  last  to  the  most  undesirable  goal. 

From  this  point  of  view  we  may  apparently  ar- 
range men  in  three  distinct  classes: 

1.  The  wise,  who  see  the  connection  between  path- 
way and  goal,  and  act  accordingly.  This  is  the 
select  class,  the  one  to  which  any  earnest  and 
thoughtful  person  would  wish  to  belong.  But  this 
is  also  the  class  of  which  Jesus  said  that  they  are 
"few"   (Matt.  7:14). 

2.  The  visionary,  who  dream  of  the  destiny  they 
would  like  to  attain,  but  are  lost  in  the  dream,  and 
fail  to  walk  daily  and  perseveringly  in  the  appro- 
priate pathway,  by  which  course  alone  they  could 
ever  hope  to  arrive  at  the  dreamed-of  goal.  The 
high  hopes  of  this  class  of  men  are  doomed  to  dis- 
appointment, because  they  fail  to  take  the  necessary 
practical  steps  to  realize  their  hopes. 

3.  The  majority,  who  are  so  occupied  with  the 
course  of  life  they  are  following,  its  interests  and 
events,  its  experiences  and  pleasures,  that  they  either 
do  not  think,  or  do  not  care,  about  the  destiny  to 
which  that  course  must  lead.  Of  this  class  Jesus 
said  that  they  are  "many"  (Matt.  7:13).  They 
are,  in  fact,  the  majority  of  men,  the  crowd,  who 
characteristically  follow  the  course  that  happens 
to  please  them,  without  concerning  themselves  much 
about  the  destiny  to  which  that  course  will  inevitably 
lead. 

Such    persons    need    to    be    reminded    that    idle 


Pathway  and  Goal  95 

thoughtlessness  or  reckless  indifference  regarding  the 
goal  does  not  break  the  connection  between  pathway 
and  goal.  This  connection  is  causal,  and  cannot  be 
broken.  Pathway  does  determine  destiny,  whether 
men  realize  it  or  not.  With  any  who  choose  wrong 
we  must  feel  the  due  measure  of  sympathy.  Mature 
persons  who  for  one  reason  or  another  go  wrong, 
it  may  be  in  deliberate  carelessness  or  in  a  spirit 
of  mockery  and  reckless  defiance  of  the  laws  of  life, 
command  less  of  our  sj^mpathy,  because  they  sin 
intelligently  and  in  the  face  of  light,  well  knowing 
the  end  to  which  the  way  they  choose  will  lead.  On 
the  other  hand  our  sympathy  goes  out  keenly  to 
those  who  choose  the  wrong  way  through  ignorance 
or  inexperience,  not  knowing  to  what  end  it  will 
lead.  This  is  the  condition  of  the  young,  who  are 
especially  in  need  of  sympathy  and  guidance.  And 
the  responsibility  for  the  guidance  of  their  young 
lives  rests  heavily  on  those  older  and  more  expe- 
rienced persons  who  train  or  otherwise  influence 
them. 

Youth  is  truly  the  golden  age  of  life,  the  period 
of  possibility  and  of  promise.  But  it  is  also  a  time 
of  peril.  For  it  is  the  formative  period,  when  one's 
habits  and  sentiments  are  formed  and  his  character 
developed,  and  the  great  decisive  destiny-determining 
choices  of  life,  or  the  fateful  preparations  for  such 
choices,  are  made.  It  is  largely  in  youth  that  the 
issues  of  life  are  determined.  The  earlier  half  of 
life,  and  especially  the  golden  adolescent  period  from 
twlve  or  thirteen  to  about  twenty-five  years  of  age, 
is  in  a  preeminent  degree  the  destiny -making  period. 


96  The  Model  Prayer 

What  one  does  and  is  then  usually  determines  his 
destiny.  What  you  young  people  are  now,  in  your 
youth,  what  your  choices  and  your  course  through 
these  fateful  youthful  years,  will  go  very  far  toward 
determining  what  j^ou  are  to  be  and  do  through  all 
the  future  of  your  lives.  One  who  follows  a  wrong 
course  in  his  earlier  years  may  do  so  with  the  inten- 
tion of  breaking  away  from  it  later.  And  indeed 
for  a  time  he  will  have  power  to  do  this,  though  it  is 
very  foolish  to  incur  the  loss  and  the  risk  of  walking 
in  a  wrong  way  even  for  a  short  time.  But  ability 
to  make  an  effective  change  will  not  last  indefinitely. 
Experience  shows  that  a  wrong  course  in  youth  may 
lead  one  so  far  astray  that  he  can  never  really  get 
back  to  the  right  course.  Chains  of  habit  bind  one, 
his  sentiments  are  firmly  set,  his  character  crystal- 
lized, his  will  enthralled,  the  magic  potency  of  youth 
to  transform  self  at  will  is  lost  as  the  years  run  by; 
and  if  this  takes  place  while  one  is  in  wrong  courses, 
he  finds  his  ability  to  get  right  gone.  Age  is  not  so 
plastic  as  youth.  When  one  is  old  he  cannot  do 
what  he  could  have  done  when  young.  The  results 
of  his  course  in  life  bind  him  like  the  bands  of  Fate 
itself.     He  is  then  like  one 

"That  all  in  later,  sadder  life  begins 
To  war  against  ill  uses  of  a  life. 
But  these  from  all  his  life  arise,  and  cry, 
*  Thou  hast  made  us  lords,  and  canst  not  put  us  down !' " 

Should  you  ask  when  the  power  to  change  from 
the  evil  way  to  the  good  will  fail,  the  answer  must 
be,  We  do  not  know.     It  varies  in  different  indi- 


Pathway  and  Goal  97 

vfduals.  In  one  sooner,  in  another  later,  but  in  all 
at  last.  It  is  unsafe  to  count  on  its  lasting  to  a 
given  age.  Many  have  run  that  risk  only  to  find, 
like  Dr.  Jekyll  in  Stevenson's  story,  that  when  they 
tried  to  change  and  resume  mastery  of  self  for  good, 
it  was  too  late.  Wisdom  indicates  that  one  should 
do  the  safe  thing  by  getting  into  the  right  way 
early. 

Hence,  young  friends,  the  time  to  choose  the  right 
way  is  now,  and  then  you  may  be  sure  the  future 
will  be  right,  too.  The  connection  between  path- 
way and  goal  makes  imperative  the  injunction,  "  Re- 
member now  thy  Creator  in  the  days  of  thy  youth/* 
Get  right  with  God  now,  and  you  may  hope  to  be 
right  with  him  all  your  days.  Choose  the  right  way 
now,  and  walk  in  it  during  these  early  happy  years, 
and  it  will  make  the  later  years,  also,  happy.  You 
will  find  hereafter  that  when  you  chose  God  and 
the  good  you  were  choosing  happiness  and  blessing, 
too.  The  choice  of  right  course  in  life  means  the 
choice  of  right  destiny.  Heed  the  wisdom  of  the 
Christ  as  he,  through  the  words  that  stand  at  the 
head  of  this  study,  urges  you  to  enter  in  by  the 
straight  and  narrow  way  that  leadeth  unto  life. 
Pathway  determines  destiny.  Never  forget  it. 
Heed  the  guideboards  which  divine  love  has  posted 
to  prevent  you  in  your  inexperience  from  making 
choice  of  a  way  that  would  lead  to  ruin.  The  char- 
acter of  the  way  makes  it  clear  to  what  destiny  it 
leads  at  last.  And  be  assured  that  in  choosing  the 
way  you  are  also  inevitably  choosing  the  goal  to 
which  it  leads. 


98  The  Model  Prayer 

III.  The  third  principle:  The  thought  just  ex- 
pressed leads  up  to  this  principle,  which  may  be 
stated  thus:  Choice  of  a  certain  pathway  or  course 
in  life  involves  also  the  choice  of  the  corresponding 
destiny.  Or,  otherwise  stated,  choice  of  goal  is  in- 
volved in  choice  of  pathway.  For  every  pathway 
has  its  own  goal,  inseparable  from  the  pathway. 
This  third  principle  is  but  a  corollary  of  the  first 
principle.  Since  pathway  determines  goal,  it  neces- 
sarily follows  that  choice  of  pathway  is  equivalent  to 
choice  of  goal.  What  a  pity  that  men  do  not  realize 
this  well  enough  to  choose  only  the  ways  that  lead 
to  right  goals!  Yet  surely  they  do  not  realize  it, 
for  we  see  multitudes  choosing  and  following  ways 
which  can  end  only  in  ruin.  To  be  sure,  it  is  only 
the  way  they  choose,  and  not  the  end,  which  they 
would  not  on  any  account  choose.  But  in  choosing 
the  way  they  choose  the  end  also,  though  that  end  be 
"  destruction." 

To  illustrate:  Probably  no  one  ever  directly 
chose  a  dope  fiend's  death  as  the  goal  of  his  life. 
Yet  thousands  in  our  land  every  year  choose  and 
walk  in  the  way  that  leads  to  such  an  end.  The 
continued  use  of  morphine  or  cocaine  or  similar 
drugs  can  lead  to  no  other  result.  What  wonder 
that  so  many  perish  miserably  at  last!  No  other 
issue  of  their  lives  could  be  expected.  In  choosing 
the  dope-user's  pathway  they  choose  the  dope- fiend's 
end.  For  choice  of  pathway  involves  choice  of  des- 
tiny. 

Again,  few  if  any  ever  chose  as  the  goal  of  their 
lives  a   drunkard's  grave.     Yet  tens  of   thousands 


Pathway  and  Goal  99 

every  year  choose  and  walk  in  the  pathway  that  leads 
to  such  an  end.  That  pathway  may  be  entered 
when  one  takes  his  first  glass  of  beer,  or  smokes  his 
first  cigarette,  or  begins  association  with  evil  com- 
panions. But  whenever  and  however  one  enters  it, 
he  cannot  continue  to  travel  the  course  and  avoid  the 
goal  to  which  it  leads.  For  the  way  determines  the 
goal,  and  to  choose  the  way  is  to  choose  the  goal. 

Probably  also  few  ever  directly  chose  inefficiency 
and  failure  as  the  issue  of  their  lives.  Yet  multi- 
tudes choose  to  follow  courses  which  can  have  no 
other  outcome.  Idleness  and  shiftlessness  are  path- 
ways which  can  lead  only  to  failure.  Careless  and 
unfaithful  effort  makes  one  inefficient,  and  ineffi- 
ciency leads  to  failure.  Success  is  won  by  the  exer- 
cise of  such  virtues  as  industry,  accuracy  and  thor- 
oughness. In  doing  his  daily  work  incompetently 
one  gradually  becomes  himself  incompetent,  and  thus 
travels  the  way  which  issues  in  inefficiency  and  fail- 
ure. No  matter  that  one  does  not  directly  choose 
such  an  outcome  for  his  life.  Indirect  choice  is  none 
the  less  real  choice.  To  choose  the  course  that  leads 
to  a  certain  end  is  practically  to  choose  that  end. 

It  is  probable  also  that  none  have  ever  deliber- 
ately chosen  perdition  as  their  personal  destiny. 
Jesus  does  not  say  that  men  directly  choose  "  destruc- 
tion " ;  but  he  does  say  that  ''  many  "  choose  and 
walk  in  the  broad  and  easy  way  that  leads  thereto 
(Matt.  7:13).  Millions,  in  fact,  have  walked  and 
are  walking  in  ways  that  can  lead  to  no  other  goal. 
The  courses  in  life  which  these  have  chosen  are 
such  as  lead  to  moral  and  spiritual  ruin.     And  in 


lOO  The  Model  Prayer 

choosing  these  courses  they  have  also  chosen  that 
destiny.  For  choice  of  way  is  choice  of  goal. 
Among  this  class  of  persons  are  those  who  say, 
"  Lord,  Lord,"  but  do  not  the  things  which  He  says 
(Matt.  7:21-23).  In  rejecting  the  way  of  faith 
and  obedience,  of  earnestness  and  toil  and  sacrifice 
for  Christ's  sake,  they  are  also  rejecting  final  salva- 
tion. To  them  the  Lord  can  only  say  at  last,  ''  De- 
part from  me,  ye  that  work  iniquity  "  (Matt.  7 123) . 
The  way  of  self-will  and  disobedience  which  such 
persons  have  chosen  does  not  lead  to  heaven,  but 
to  a  very  different  destiny.  It  is  a  way  which  leads 
to  the  eternal  ruin  of  their  souls.  And  in  choosing 
the  way  they,  though  indirectly,  yet  actually,  choose 
the  ruin  too.  For  choice  of  way  involves  choice 
of  goal. 

These  illustrations  sufficiently  point  the  lesson. 
This  lesson  is  that  wrong  waj^s  can  lead  only  to 
wrong  ends,  and  those  who  choose  wrong  ways 
must  expect  to  arrive  at  a  wrong  goal.  How  easily 
men  deceive  themselves  about  the  outcome  of  a 
course  of  sin !  How  they  strive  to  cheat  themselves 
with  the  fancy  that,  though  they  persist  in  sinful 
ways,  the  outcome  of  their  lives  will  be  good.  But 
how  delusive  such  thinking!  It  is  as  reasonable  as 
taking  the  road  to  Nicaragua  and  expecting  to  arrive 
in  New  York.  It  is  on  a  par  with  the  argument 
that  we  may  set  a  cause  in  operation  and  avoid  its 
producing  its  appropriate  effect.  It  is  practically 
senseless  to  choose  a  wrong  course  in  life  and  assume 
that  the  outcome  will  be  or  can  be  right.  In  order 
that  one's  goal  should  be  right,  his  way  also  must  be 


Pathway  and  Goal  loi 

right.  Wrong  way  never  led  to  right  goal.  Those 
who  choose  the  wrong  way  must  expect  to  arrive  at 
the  wrong  goal;  for  choice  of  way  involves  choice 
of  goal. 

It  is  equally  true  that  right  way  never  led  to 
wrong  goal.  If  one's  way  is  right,  his  goal  also  will 
be  right.  Hence  the  assurance  those  may  have  who 
are  walking  in  the  right  way, —  they  will  infallibly 
reach  the  right  goal.  The  straight  and  narrow  way 
which  Jesus  commended  leads  only  to  life.  Walk 
in  that  way  and  j^ou  will  infallibly  attain  life. 
"  The  path  of  the  just  is  as  the  shining  light,  that 
shineth  more  and  more  unto  the  perfect  day."  If 
one  is  in  the  right  way,  he  cannot  arrive  at  the 
wrong  goal.  Thus  the  principle  under  consider- 
ation is  full  of  encouragement  as  well  as  warning. 
One  who  is  concerned  about  arriving  at  the  right 
goal  need  only  make  sure  that  he  is  in  the  right  way, 
and  then  the  choice  of  goal  will  take  care  of  itself. 
In  fact,  choice  of  goal  is  already  made  in  choice  of 
way.  And  if  the  way  is  right,  the  goal  must  be 
right.  Hence  the  immense  importance  of  being 
careful  in  choosing  the  course  of  our  lives,  for  in 
that  choice  we  also  choose  our  destiny. 

IV.  The  fourth  principle  is,  that  the  only  luay  to 
arrive  at  a  desired  goal  is  to  follozu  the  pathway  that 
leads  to  it.  Since  there  is  a  natural  correspondence 
between  pathway  and  goal,  a  causal  connection 
which  cannot  be  broken,  one  cannot  choose  his  goal 
irrespective  of  his  pathway.  Goals  lie  at  the  end  of 
pathwaj^s,  and  any  given  goal  can  be  reached  only 
by  travelling  the  pathway  at  whose  end  it  lies.     Or, 


I02  The  Model  Prayer 

to  turn  the  thought  the  other  way,  pathways  lead 
somewhere;  and  if  one  follows  them,  he  can  only 
arrive  where  they  lead.  Each  pathway  has  its  own 
appropriate  end,  and  will  lead  him  who  follows  it 
to  that  end  and  to  no  other.  It  is  then  wholly  idle 
to  choose  for  oneself  a  given  destiny  without  also 
choosing  the  corresponding  pathway.  Thousands 
of  human  beings  delude  themselves  daily  in  this  re- 
spect. They  choose  for  themselves  a  certain  desir- 
able destiny  and  dream  of  attaining  and  enjoying 
it  in  the  future,  while  they  are  all  the  time  travelling 
some  wholly  unrelated  pathway,  because  forsooth 
that  seems  easier  or  affords  more  present  pleasure. 
All  such  souls  are  doomed  to  disappointment.  They 
will  never  attain  the  destiny  they  have  chosen  and 
dreamed  about.  It  is  not  one's  theoretical  choices 
and  idle  dreams,  but  his  actual  course  in  life,  that 
determines  his  destiny.  These  self-deluded  souls 
can  only  attain  the  destiny  that  corresponds  to  the 
way  they  travel,  the  goal  that  lies  at  the  end  of  that 
way,  which  may  be  quite  the  reverse  of  what  they  in 
mere  fancy  chose  for  themselves  and  dreamed  about. 
How  unreasoning,  how  senseless,  to  dream  of  at- 
taining and  enjoying  one  destiny,  while  all  the  time 
following  the  course  that  leads  to  another!  It  is 
the  course  that  determines  the  destiny  at  which  one 
shall  arrive.  Desired  destinies  can  be  attained  only 
by  following  the  courses  that  lead  to  them. 

For  example,  a  young  man  may  decide  that  he 
will  accumulate  a  competence  for  himself  and  family 
in  old  age.  This  is  a  worthy  goal  of  financial 
effort.     The   pathway   that  leads   to   it   is  that  of 


Pathivay  and  Goal  103 

enterprise,  industry,  and  economy,  summed  up  in 
the  one  phrase  good  business  management.  The  ex- 
perience of  a  shrewd  and  successful  man  in  this  line 
is  described  Gen.  30:43:  "And  (Jacob)  increased 
exceedingly,  and  had  much  cattle,  and  maid-servants, 
and  men-servants,  and  camels,  and  asses."  But  this 
prosperity  and  success  are  explained  by  another  pas- 
sage in  the  story  of  Jacob,  which  reads:  "  (For 
twenty  years)  thus  was  I :  in  the  day  the  drought 
consumed  me,  and  the  frost  by  night;  and  my  sleep 
departed  from  mine  eyes"  (Gen:  31:40).  Jacob's 
arduous  course  in  life,  characterized  by  enterprise 
and  economy  and  strict  attention  to  business,  bur- 
dened indeed  with  toil  and  care  for  twenty  long 
years,  sufficiently  explains  his  business  success.  He 
attained  a  competence  because  he  followed  the  way 
that  led  to  that  goal. 

Contrast  with  this  the  experience  of  a  business 
friend  of  mine  who  also  dreamed  of  competence  and 
ease  as  the  goal  of  his  business  life,  but  who  unlike 
Jacob  took  things  easy  by  the  way  and  indulged 
in  the  pleasures  which  would  have  been  within 
his  reach  only  after  {not  before)  a  full  compe- 
tence had  been  acquired.  Thus  for  many  years  he 
travelled  the  pathway  of  extravagance  and  business 
risk,  making  his  expenses  so  large  as  to  drain  away 
his  means  and  prevent  the  growth  of  his  capital. 
While  conditions  were  favorable  all  of  course  went 
well.  But  bye  and  bye  came  business  reverses  and 
hard  times,  and  my  friend  was  hard  pressed.  If  he 
had  had  a  little  more  capital,  a  few  of  the  thousands 
of  dollars  he  had  practically  wasted  in  earlier  years, 


I04  The  Model  Prayer 

he  would  have  weathered  the  storm.  But  his  avail- 
able capital  was  insufficient  to  carry  him  through, 
his  extravagant  ways  had  damaged  his  credit,  and 
the  outcome  of  it  all  was  that  he  had  to  go  down 
in  financial  ruin.  He  had  no  working  capital  left 
with  which  to  make  a  new  start,  and  was  too  old 
anyway  to  begin  again.  With  tears  in  his  eyes  he 
said  to  me,  "  Friend,  I  am  down  and  out,  com- 
pletely." His  health  had  broken  under  the  strain, 
too,  and  now  he  was  old  and  ill  and  poor.  And  I 
tell  you  old  age,  ill  health  and  poverty  make  a  tragic 
combination.  This  man  who  had  dreamed  of  com- 
petence and  ease  and  comfort  in  old  age  was  now 
old  and  poor  and  comfortless.  But  he  had  followed 
through  his  life  the  pathway  that  would  naturally 
lead  to  such  an  end,  and  how  could  he  expect  to  ar- 
rive at  any  other?  So,  however,  it  usually  is;  with 
fatuous  disregard  for  life's  stern  laws  men  choose 
and  follow  a  pathway,  when  they  would  not  for  the 
world  choose  the  destiny  to  which  that  way  inevitably 
leads.  How  necessary  then  to  emphasize  the  truth 
that  the  destinies  which  men  desire  can  be  attained 
only  by  following  the  ivays  that  lead  to  thetn! 

A  teacher  of  mine  in  college  once  said  to  me,  "  If 
you  do  not  learn  something  while  in  school  well 
enough  to  make  effective  practical  use  of  it  after  leav- 
ing school,  God  help  you!  "  And  he  was  dead  right. 
Shiftlessness  and  inefficency  during  the  period  of 
preparation  for  life  are  pathways  that  lead  to  failure 
and  its  associated  miseries.  Few  men  choose  failure 
as  their  goal  in  life;  but  many  choose  the  pathways 
that  lead  to  failure.     Many  a  student,  while  dodg- 


Pathway  and  Goal  105 

ing  the  severe  disciplinary  studies  of  the  curriculum, 
the  studies  that  make  men  thinkers  and  give  them 
power,  and  while  growling  at  the  hard  lessons,  and 
"  scamping  "  his  work  all  he  dares  if  he  is  to  remain 
in  school  at  all,  and  being  content  barely  to  scrape 
through  by  the  grace  of  lenient  instructors  and  thus 
to  bear  through  life  a  really  unearned  degree,  is  at 
the  same  time  dreaming  of  the  great  things  he  will 
do  when  he  gets  out  into  the  world.  But  let  him 
not  deceiv^e  himself.  The  chances  are  that  he  will 
never  do  great  things.  He  is  following  a  pathway 
that  leads  not  to  achievement  and  honor,  but  to  in- 
efficiency and  failure.  And  as  long  as  one  follows 
such  a  pathway,  he  cannot  reasonably  expect  to  ar- 
rive at  any  other  goal.  Men  do  not  attain  the  des- 
tinies they  dream  of  and  aspire  to,  unless  they  follow 
the  pathways  that  lead  to  them. 

There  are  many  who  dream  of  occupying  positions 
of  trust  and  power,  of  administering  great  enter- 
prises, and  enjoying  the  confidence  and  admiration 
of  their  fellowmen.  But  such  a  destiny  can  be  at- 
tained only  by  following  the  pathway  of  faithful  and 
toilful  utilization  of  present  opportunity.  One  who 
neglects  or  "  scamps  "  his  present  work  is  unfitting 
himself  for  doing  any  work  well.  He  is  disqualify- 
ing himself  for  larger  tasks,  nay  more,  he  is  unfitting 
himself  for  doing  even  his  present  work  acceptably. 
He  is  travelling  the  way  to  incompetence,  and  to  the 
distrust  of  his  fellowmen,  not  their  admiration.  If 
one  has  been  unfaithful  in  that  which  is  little,  who 
will  entrust  to  him  large  interests?  (See  Luke  16: 
10-12).     If  he  has  failed  to  administer  well  a  small 


io6  The  Model  Prayer 

trust,  who  will  commit  to  him  a  great  enterprise? 
Faithfulness  in  lowly  station  is  the  pathway  that 
leads  to  promotion.  As  Christ  put  it  in  the  parable, 
''Well  done,  thou  good  and  faithful  servant;  thou 
hast  been  faithful  over  a  few  things,  I  will  make  thee 
ruler  over  many  things:  enter  thou  into  the  joy  of 
thy  Lord"  (Matt.  25:2if).  What  reason  could 
there  be  in  entrusting  a  great  task,  involving  great 
and  precious  values,  to  one  who  has  not  shown  him- 
self competent  to  accomplish  a  small  one?  He  who 
has  failed  in  that  which  is  little,  will  he  not  also  fail, 
yea  has  he  not  actually  prepared  himself  to  fail,  in 
that  which  is  greater?  (Luke  16:10-12).  For 
surely  unfaithfulness  and  failure  are  not  the  path- 
way to  trustworthiness  and  success. 

There  are  even  those  who  sit  and  dream  of  attain- 
ing heaven,  while  they  fail  to  travel  through  life 
the  straight  and  narrow  way  that  leads  thereto. 
But  here  again  the  destiny  cannot  be  chosen  apart 
from  the  w^ay.  The  only  way  to  attain  heaven  is  to 
travel  the  right  and  appropriate  way.  The  only 
way  to  arrive  at  any  desired  goal  is  to  follow  the 
pathway  that  leads  to  it. 

In  concluding  this  division  of  our  study  we  may 
lay  down  two  eminently  practical  rules:  (i)  If 
you  don't  wish  to  arrive  at  a  certain  goal,  dont 
travel  the  way  that  leads  to  it;  and  (2)  if  you  wish 
to  arrive  at  a  certain  goal,  make  sure  you  are  follow- 
ing the  course  that  leads  thereto. 

But  perhaps  you  may  have  been  thinking.  There 
is  nothing  new  in  this  message;  its  topic  is  old  and 
obvious.     Yes,   it  is  old   and   obvious,   but   for  all 


Pathway  and  Goal  107 

that,  none  the  less  important.  An  idea  does  not 
need  to  be  novel  in  order  to  be  valuable.  Perhaps 
the  message  may  be  partially  new  to  some  who  will 
read  these  pages,  or  may  serve  to  set  some  of  life's 
stern  facts  in  a  new  and  helpful  light.  But  the  aim 
of  this  study  is  not  so  much  to  bring  new  knowledge 
to  your  minds,  as  to  urge  you  to  act  on  the  knowl- 
edge you  already  have.  It  is  one  thing  to  know 
life's  laws,  and  altogether  another  thing  to  live  con- 
formably to  them.  By  living  conformably  to  life's 
laws  I  mean  making  beneficent  and  salvatory  per- 
sonal adjustment  to  them.  The  purpose  of  this  mes- 
sage is  not  to  inform  you  of  what  you  presumably 
already  know  very  well,  but  to  impress  upon  you 
the  supreme  practical  importance  of  the  admittedly 
well-known  fact  that  one's  pathway  in  life  determines 
his  destiny;  and  if  possible  to  induce  you  to  act  and 
live  daily  as  if  you  realized  the  solemn  significance 
of  this  fact.  The  purpose  is,  to  induce  you,  if  you 
will  heed  the  plea,  so  to  order  your  course  in  life 
that  you  \w\\\  arrive  at  a  good  and  blessed  goal  at 
last.  You  cannot  afford  to  act  and  live  otherwise. 
It  is  no  light  matter  to  play  with  your  destiny,  either 
for  the  present  life  or  for  the  life  to  come. 

And  so  finally  let  me  warn  and  urge  you  to  be 
careful  about  the  pathway  you  are  following.  Be 
sure  it  is  one  which  leads  to  a  right  destiny.  Wide 
is  the  gate,  and  broad  and  —  for  a  long  time,  perhaps 
—  easy  is  the  way  that  leadeth  to  destruction;  the 
down-hill  road  is  likely  to  be  easy.  And  the  crowd 
is  travelling  that  way,  too :  —  "  many  there  be  which 
go  in  thereat."     But  do  you  want  "  destruction,"  in 


io8  The  Model  Prayer 

one  of  its  many  forms,  to  be  the  goal  of  your  life, 
your  destiny?  If  not,  dont  choose  this  broad  and 
easy  way;  for  that  is  the  destiny  to  which  it  in- 
evitably leads. 

The  right  way,  on  the  other  hand,  is  likely  to  be 
narrow  and  steep  and  hard;  the  path  that  leads  to 
the  heights,  to  honor  and  distinction  and  lofty 
achievement,  the  up-hill  road,  is  not  likely  to  be  easy. 
It  is  likely  to  be  lonely,  too,  for  heroic  souls  are  not 
overly  numerous.  ''  Strait  is  the  gate  and  narrow 
is  the  way  that  leadeth  unto  life,  and  few  there  be 
that  find  it."  But  choose  this  way  and  follow  it; 
take  the  heroic  course  as  yours,  conquer  the  difficult 
situation,  attack  and  accomplish  the  repellant  task, 
sacrifice  ease  and  pleasure  for  high  and  noble  ends, 
cultivate  the  habit  of  mastery  in  all  that  you  do, 
be  faithful  in  every  trust  committed  to  you,  and  day 
by  day  you  will  grow  and  w^ax  strong  and  efficient, 
and  when  your  day  of  destiny  comes,  be  it  soon  or 
late,  you  will  stand  revealed  as  one  who  has  won  in 
the  battle  of  life,  and  is  worthy  of  the  high  plaudit, 
*'  Well  done,"  and  of  a  share  in  the  joy  of  our  Lord. 
But  remember,  you  can  attain  this  desirable  destiny 
only  by  travelling  the  pathway  that  leads  to  it! 

Teach  me  thy  way,   O  Lord;    I  will  walk  in  thy  truth: 

unite  my  heart  to  fear  thy  name. 
Search    me,    O    God,    and   know   my   heart:   try   me,    and 

know  my  thoughts: 
And  see  if  there  be  any  wicked  way  in  me,  and  lead  me  in 

the  way  everlasting. 


VI 

ST.  PAUL'S  LOVE  CHAPTER 

An  Exposition  of  i  Cor.  13 

ANY  lingering  remnant  in  any  one  of  the  silly 
superstition  that  the  number  thirteen  is  unlucky 
ought  to  vanish  forever  in  face  of  the  fact  that  the 
thirteenth  chapter  of  First  Corinthians,  containing 
also  thirteen  verses,  is  one  of  the  finest  chapters  in 
the  whole  Bible,  and  one  of  the  most  wonderful  pas- 
sages in  all  literature.  In  exalted  sentiment,  poetic 
beauty,  and  spiritual  power,  it  has  few  equals. 

To  expound  such  a  passage  w^orthily  is  a  task  of  no 
mean  proportions.  I  undertake  it  with  all  diffi- 
dence, with  no  thought  of  being  able  to  rival  the  fine 
expositions  of  earlier  days,  such  as  Henry  Drum- 
mond's  noble  reproduction  of  the  sentiment  of  this 
chapter  in  his  beautiful  essay,  "  The  Greatest  Thing 
in  the  World."  My  aim  is  different,  and  more 
modest.  Without  any  attempt  to  rival  these  earlier 
essays,  we  may  yet  undertake  to  do  a  useful  thing  for 
Christian  people  by  giving  them  a  popular  interpre- 
tation (exegesis)  of  this  great  chapter,  based  on 
careful  scholarship. 

The  aim  of  such  exegesis  is  simply  to  define  as  ex- 
actly as  possible  the  ideas  expressed  here  by  the  apos- 
tle, and  to  set  them  in  a  clear  and  suggestive  light. 

Back  of  this  chapter  lies,  of  course,  the  history 
109 


no  The  Model  Prayer 

of  the  Corinthian  church.  This  church's  member- 
ship (which  was  numerous,  Acts  i8:8,  lo),  although 
it  contained  a  considerable  Jewish  element  (Acts  i8: 
8,  etc.),  and  probably  a  modest  proportion  of  Romans 
(descendants  of  the  Roman  veterans  and  freedmen 
settled  in  Corinth  by  Julius  Caesar  in  44  B.  c.)  and  of 
other  non-Greek  Gentiles,  almost  certainly  was  pre- 
vailingly of  Greek  nationality.  The  atmosphere  of 
their  life  was  largely  Greek.  Greek  traditions  and 
customs,  and  the  Greek  spirit,  predominated.  The 
faults  as  well  as  the  virtues  of  the  Greek  character 
were  in  evidence. 

These  qualities  of  character,  along  with  the  cir- 
cumstances and  life  of  the  Corinthian  Christians, 
constitute  the  historical  background  of  the  thirteenth 
chapter  of  the  First  Corinthians,  and  will  be  care- 
fully taken  into  account  in  the  following  exposition. 
But,  while  we  must  not  lose  touch  with  the  concrete 
setting  of  the  chapter  (the  influence  of  which  is 
evident  in  every  verse),  we  must  also  avoid  exagger- 
ating its  significance  for  the  interpreter.  For  in  this 
chapter  the  apostle,  although  never  losing  from  sight 
the  situation  and  needs  at  Corinth,  has  passed  out 
into  the  fundamental  and  the  universal,  and  presents 
aspects  and  elements  of  truth  which  are  the  same 
everywhere  and  always,  and  principles  which  are 
applicable  to  the  life  of  all  men,  of  whatever  age  and 
race. 

The  immediate  occasion  of  the  writing  of  this 
chapter  was  the  discussion  of  the  subject  of  "  spirit- 
ual gifts,"  their  nature  and  purpose,  and  the  manner 
of  their  use  at  Corinth,  which  we  find  in   i   Cor., 


St,  Paul's  Love  Chapter  lil 

chapters  12  and  14.  As  Paul  discusses  these 
"  gifts,"  which  he  presents  as  special  endowments 
imparted  to  various  indviduals  by  the  Holy  Spirit  of 
God  (i  Cor.  12:1-11),  and  as  he  thinks  of  the 
grave  abuses  connected  with  the  possession  and  ex- 
ercise of  these  endowments  at  Corinth  —  of  the  un- 
wholesome excitement;  the  vanity  and  selfishness  of 
many ;  the  childish  preference  for  the  showy  and  sen- 
sational rather  than  the  substantial  and  useful;  the 
unseemly  disorders  which  disgraced  the  public  meet- 
ings of  the  Corinthian  Christians  (i  Cor.  14:23,  33, 
etc.)  ;  the  undue  pride  of  intellect,  with  tendencies 
toward  conceited  speculation  and  philosophizing,  and 
over-esteem  for  such  gifts  as  "  knowledge "  and 
''wisdom"  (i  Cor.  1:22,  8:1,  12:8,  13:2,  13:8-12, 
etc.)  :  —  as  Paul  thinks  of  these  things,  he  is  led  to 
show  the  Corinthians  "  a  more  excellent  way  "  ( i 
Cor.  12:31  b),  a  way  wherein  the  true  motive  and 
atmosphere  for  all  cultivation  and  exercise  of  spirit- 
ual gifts  are  found,  that  motive,  that  principle, 
without  which  the  possession  and  use  of  any  gifts, 
even  the  most  exalted  and  wonderful,  would  be  vain 
(i  Cor.  13:1-3).^ 

This  motive,  this  principle,  is  Love.  This  is  the 
great  love  chapter  of  the  Bible.  With  it  we  ought 
to  compare  John's  praise  of  Love  in  his  first  epistle, 
4:7-21.  Paul  and  John  are  the  great  love  writers 
of  the  New  Testament.  The  former  uses  the  noun 
and  the  verb  for  Christian  love  a  total  of  one  hun- 
dred six  times;  the  latter,  whose  waitings  are  con- 
siderably less  in  extent  than  Paul's,  uses  both  words 
ninety-four  times.     These  two  men  far  exceed  the 


112  The  Model  Prayer 

rest  of  the  New  Testament  writers  in  the  frequency 
of  their  reference  to  the  supreme  grace  of  the  Chris- 
tian character  and  life.  It  is  no  accident  that  they 
have  written  the  love  chapters,  and  that  one  of  them 
is  known  as  the  *'  Apostle  of  Love."  They  agree  in 
finding  the  motive  principle  of  the  Christian  life  in 
the  heart. 

Of  the  Pauline  love  chapter  the  great  German 
commentator,  Meyer,  has  said:  "This  praise  of 
love  —  almost  a  psalm  of  love  it  might  be  called  — 
is  as  rich  in  its  contents  drawn  from  experience  as  in 
rhetorical  truth,  fullness  and  power,  grace  and  sim- 
plicty."  Of  it  Principal  Brown  wrote:  "The 
surpassing  beauty  of  this  chapter  has  been  felt  and 
expressed  wherever  it  has  been  read,  by  persons  of 
the  most  opposite  religious  views,  and  by  those  who 
can  appreciate  only  its  literary  qualities."  It  is 
truly  one  of  the  literary  and  spiritual  gems  of  the 
ages,  and  ought  to  be  fixed  in  the  memory  of  every 
one  as  an  aid  and  inspiration  to  a  better  life. 

As  we  approach  the  exposition  of  this  chapter,  let 
us  first  read  it  through  in  a  translation  made  directly 
from  the  Greek  for  this  study. 

1.  If  I  speak  with  the  tongues  of  men  and  of  angels,  but 
have  not  love,  I  have  become  sounding  brass  or  a  clanging 
cymbal. 

2.  And  if  I  have  the  gift  of  prophecy,  and  know  all  the 
mysteries  and  all  the  knowledge,  and  if  I  have  all  the  faith 
requisite  to  remove  mountains,  but  have  not  love,  I  am 
nothing. 

3.  And  if  I  bestow  all  my  goods  to  feed  the  poor,  and 
if  I  surrender  my  body  in  order  that  I  may  be  burned, 
but  have  not  love,  I  am  profited  nothing. 


St.  Paul's  Love  Chapter  US 


4.  Love  is  forbearing,  love  Is  kind,  love  envieth  not, 
vaunteth  not  herself,  Is  not  puffed  up, 

5  Doth  not  behave  unseemly,  seeketh  not  her  own,  is 
not  Irritable-and-ill-tempered,  taketh  not  account  of  evil- 
treatment,  .    .      1        -..u  *l,^ 

6.  Rejolceth  not  at  unrighteousness,  but  rejoiceth  with  tne 

^"7.  Beareth  with  all  things,  believeth  all  things,  hopeth  all 
things,  endureth  all  things. 

8  Love  never  f  alleth ;  but  whether  there  be  prophecies, 
they  shall  be  done  away ;  whether  there  be  tongues,  they 
shall  cease ;  whether  there  be  knowledge,  it  shall  be  done 
away. 

9.  For  we  know  in  part  and  we  prophesy  in  part ; 

10.  But  when  that  which  is  perfect  shall  come,  that 
which  is  In  part  shall  be  done  away.  .,      ,    , 

11.  When  I  was  a  child,  I  spake  as  a  child,  I  thought  as 
a  child,  I  reasoned  as  a  child ;  since  I  have  become  a  man, 
I  have  put  away  the  things  of  the  child. 

12.  For  we  see  now  by  means  of  a  mirror,  obscurely, 
but  then  face  to  face ;  now  I  know  in  part,  but  then  shall 
I  know  fully  just  as  also  I  was  fully  known. 

13.  And  now  abideth  faith,  hope,  love,  these  three;  but 
the  greatest  of  these  is  love. 

As  is  obvious  at  a  glance,  the  theme  of  this  chapter 
is  love,  Christian  love.  What  love  is  forms  the  sub- 
ject of  the  next  study,  and  no  space  wall  be  used  in 
attempting  a  definition  here.  What  we  should  note 
here  is  that  the  chapter  has  three  divisions,  each 
with  its  own  truth  to  convey  concerning  love,  as  fol- 
lows: 

(i)   Verses  1-3,  the  indispensableness  ot  love  to 

the  Christian. 

(2)  Verses  4-7,  the  excellencies  of  love. 

(3)  Verses  8-13,  the  eternal  permanence  of  love. 
The  first  division  shows  that  without  love  there 


114  The  Model  Prayer 

can  be  no  such  thing  as  a  Christian,  no  such  thing  as 
Christian  character  or  a  Christian  life;  the  second 
division  sets  forth  the  wondrous  character  and 
excellence  of  love,  here  fairly  personified;  and  the 
third  division  teaches  that  love  is  enduring  and  eter- 
nal, and  never  to  be  done  away.  And  now  we  are 
ready  for  the  verse  by  verse  exposition. 

Verse  i :  —  The  speaking  with  tongues  at  Corinth 
was  not  a  speaking  in  foreign  languages,  but  an 
ecstatic  inarticulate  outburst  of  praise  and  prayer, 
unintelligible  to  any  one  who  had  not  the  gift  of  in- 
terpretation. It  was  a  gift  which  readily  lent  itself 
to  abuses  in  public  meetings,  and  against  such  abuses 
Paul  speaks  at  length  in  i  Cor.  14.  This  gift  was 
evidently  immoderately  prized  at  Corinth  on  ac- 
count of  its  striking  and  sensational  character;  and 
the  motive  back  of  its  exercise  was  too  often  personal 
vanity  and  selfish  forgetfulness  of  the  duty  of  bene- 
fitting others  (i  Cor.  14:4,  6,  12-20,  etc.).  Paul's 
thought  in  this  verse  then  is:  Love  which  desires 
and  seeks  the  profit  of  others  is  the  supreme  and 
indispensable  motive  for  all  worthy  and  acceptable 
seeking  and  exercising  of  spiritual  gifts  in  the  church. 
If  I  speak  with  all  forms  of  ecstatic  prayer  and 
praise,  even  the  most  exalted  and  wonderful,  with 
tongues  not  only  of  men  but  of  angels,  but  have  not 
love,  I  have  become  but  sounding  brass  or  a  clanging 
cymbal  —  a  mere  dead  instrument,  without  moral 
worth  or  real  merit  in  the  service  of  God  or  man. 

Vs.  2 :  —  The  gift  of  prophecy  here  spoken  of  was 
not  specifically  the  power  to  predict  the  future,  but 
capacity  for  an  exalted  eloquent  style  of  preaching 


St.  Paul's  Love  Chapter  115 

Christian  truth.  This  was  prized  by  Paul  as  an  im- 
mensely useful  gift,  whereby  the  church  was  edified 
(i  Cor.  14:4)  and  unbelievers  convicted  and  con- 
verted (i  Cor.  14:24,  25).  The  Corinthians  prized 
it,  too,  but  for  other  reasons;  it  ministered  to  their 
conceit  based  on  the  Greek  love  of  the  arts  of  the 
sophist,  subtle  dialectic  and  elegant  and  eloquent 
speech.  Paul  reminds  his  readers  that  even  so  ex- 
alted and  useful  a  gift  as  Christian  oratory,  if  not 
motived  by  lovcj  confers  no  real  honor  on  the  orator. 

To  know  all  the  mysteries  and  all  the  knowledge 
there  are  to  be  known  would  be  a  very  lofty  form 
of  the  gift  of  knowledge  (i  Cor.  12:8).  This  gift 
was  much  prized  at  Corinth,  as  would  be  natural 
among  Greeks,  with  their  pride  of  intellect.  It 
seems  to  have  had  its  natural  effect  under  such  cir- 
cumstances, too,  judging  by  Paul's  pointed  assertion 
in  this  letter  that  *'  knowledge  puffeth  up  "  ( i  Cor. 
8:1).  Without  love,  however,  the  gift  of  knowl- 
edge carries  no  merit  or  credit  with  it,  is  indeed 
rather  a  spiritual  peril  than  an  advantage. 

The  faith  requisite  to  remove  mountains  is  not  or- 
dinary justifying  saving  faith,  such  as  endures  for- 
ever (vs.  13),  and  is  common  to  all  Christians;  but 
is  a  special  power  conferred  by  the  Spirit  on  certain 
individuals  only  (i  Cor.  12:9),  who  thereby  be- 
come capable  of  doing  works  of  wonder  of  one  sort 
and  another  (i  Cor.  12:9,  loa,  etc.  cf.  Luke  17:6, 
etc.).  But  without  love  this  exalted  gift  also  is 
spiritually  valueless. 

The  thought  of  vs.  2  then  is:  With  the  noblest 
gifts  of  the  Spirit,  **  the  inspiration  of  a  seer  joined 


Ii6  The  Model  Prayer 

with  the  intellect  of  a  philosopher"  (Findley),  and 
with  the  whole  heroism  of  faith  requisite  to  the  real- 
izing of  the  seemingly  impossible,  but  without  love,  I 
am  nothing,  i.  e.,  ethically  and  spiritually  of  no  real 
value  whatever,  utterly  insignificant,  a  cipher  in 
God's  great  realm  of  spiritual  laws  and  spiritual  life. 

Vs.  3 :  —  And  if  I  do  outwardly  the  very  highest 
works  of  charity  and  sacrifice,  such  as  bestowing  all 
my  possessions  to  help  the  poor,  and  even  surrender- 
ing my  own  bodily  self  up  to  death  in  martyrdom, 
but  have  not  love  as  my  inward  motive,  I  am  pro- 
fitted  nothing,  i.  e.,  find  for  myself  no  reward,  no 
spiritual  and  abiding  gain  (cf.  Matt.  6:2,  5,  16:26, 
I  John  3:14,  etc. ) .  Why  should  there  be  any  re- 
ward, when  the  spirit  of  the  deeds  is  selfish,  and  the 
m_otive  self-glorification  ? 

Here  we  may  ask  ourselves  whether  such  cases  as 
are  described  in  these  first  three  verses  are  merely 
supposed  by  Paul  ("  if,"  he  says)  ;  or  whether  they 
are  possible  and  do  occur?  Are  not  such  cases  pos- 
sible, where  men  have  many  endowments  and  privi- 
leges, and  yet  never  attain  the  essential  and  indis- 
pensable grace  of  character  which  alone  gives  value 
to  life?  With  Meyer  we  must  answer:  They  are 
possible,  and  "  their  possibility  arises  from  the  fact 
that,  in  the  midst  of  the  charismatic  phenomena 
which  made  their  appearance  as  if  by  contagion  in 
the  church,  men  might  be  carried  away  and  rapt  into 
states  of  exaltation  without  the  presence  of  the  true 
ground  of  the  new  inward  life,  the  new  creature." 
The  warning  gets  tragic  point  from  such  passages  as 
Matt.  7:21-23   (the  Lord's  own  words),  and  Heb. 


St.  Paul's  Love  Chapter  117 

6 :4-6,  where  privileges  and  endowments  —  the  ex- 
ternal and  intellectual  elements  —  are  experienced, 
but  love  is  wanting ;  and  from  such  cases  as  those  of 
Caiaphas,  who  although  inspired  to  utter  a  prophecy 
yet  hated  Christ  (John  11:49-52),  and  Balaam, 
who  although  inspired  yet  resisted  the  will  of  God 
and  "  loved  the  wages  of  unrighteousness "  (see 
Num.  chapters  22  to  24,  31:16,  8,  with  Rev.  2:14 
and  2  Pet.  2:15,  16). 

Thus  we  learn  from  these  three  verses  that  love  is 
indispensable  to  the  Christian  character  and  life, — 
the  type  of  character  approved  by  God,  the  mode  of 
life  which  alone  is  acceptable  to  God.  Without  the 
love  that  manifests  itself  in  deeds  of  kindness  and 
helpfulness,  it  is  vain  to  claim  to  be  a  Christian  at  all. 
If  one  have  not  love,  he  is  spiritually  nothing.  *'  He 
that  loveth  not  knoweth  not  God  "  (i  John  4:8). 

And  here  we  turn  to  the  second  division  of  the 
chapter,  vss.  4-7,  where  we  have  a  portrait  of  love, 
personified,  reflecting  her  power  to  edify  (i  Cor. 
8:1),  ''presented  in  short,  definite,  isolated  traits, 
first  positively,  then  negatively,  then  again  posi- 
tively, according  to  her  own  inexhaustible  nature  " 
(Meyer). 

Vs.  4: — "Love  is  forbearing,"  i.e.,  in  the  face 
of  provocations  controls  resentment  and  main- 
tains her  own  proper  character  as  love.  Forbear- 
ance is  a  withholding  of  one's  self  from  resentment 
and  retaliation  in  the  face  of  wrong.  It  is  a  great 
virtue,  and  fruitful  of  vast  good  where  practised 
worthily  and  with  proper  motive. 

"  Love  is  kind,"  i.  e.,  love  has  those  sentiments  of 


Ii8  The  Model  Prayer 

appreciation,  sympathy,  good  will  and  fellow-feeling, 
which  we  normally  find  between  beings  of  the  same 
blood  or  "  kin,"  and  which  lead  to  action  that  is 
sympathetic  and  "  kindly."  Kindness  and  kindred 
naturally  go  together,  in  fact,  the  former  is  etymol- 
ogically  and  normally  an  outgrowth  of  the  latter. 
And  since  love  makes  all  men  brothers,  we  expect 
this  great  principle  to  move  them  to  brotherly  treat- 
ment of  each  other.  This  is  what  it  means  to  be 
kind.  It  helps  to  understand  what  is  meant  when 
we  note  how  unkmA  the  unloving  are.  The  '*  kind  " 
person  *'  acknowledges  his  kinship  with  other  men, 
and  acts  upon  it;  confesses  that  he  owes  to  them,  as 
of  one  blood  with  himself,  the  debt  of  love " 
(Trench).  Kindness  is  rooted  in  love;  and  it  is 
love  that  is  kind. 

"  Love  envieth  not,"  i.  e.,  has  no  selfish  passionate 
feelings  toward  others.  The  Greek  word  here 
translated  '  envy  '  probably  has  a  somewhat  broader 
meaning  (more  general,  less  specific)  than  our  word 
'  envy ' ;  but  the  best  we  can  do  is  to  translate 
'  envy.'  We  must  distinguish  envy  from  jealousy. 
One  is  jealous  of  what  he  regards  as  his  own,  i.  e., 
what  is  his  own  or  he  thinks  ought  to  be  his  own; 
while  one  envies  another  the  possession  of  what 
the  envier  acknowledges  is  not  his  own,  and  which 
he  may  not  wish  to  possess.  Envy  is  a  peculiarly 
bitter  and  malignant  passion,  one  of  the  worst  known 
to  the  human  heart.  It  is  sometimes  right  to  be 
jealous,  but  never  right  to  envy.  Love  may  be  jeal- 
ous of  its  own,  as  God  is  jealous  of  his  people;  but 
love  can  never  envy,  and  envy  could  not  be  predi- 


St.  Paul's  Love  Chapter  119 

cated  of  God,  who  *' is  love"    (i   John  4:8,    16). 

"  Vaunteth  not  herself,  is  not  puffed  up":  love 
does  not  *'  show  off,"  nor  indulge  in  outward  dis- 
play; and  equally  love  feels  no  inward  arrogance  or 
conceit. 

Vs.  5 :  — "  Doth  not  behave  unseemly,"  i.e.,  love 
is  guilty  of  no  discourtesy  or  rudeness,  but  always 
exhibits  delicacy  of  feeling,  and  due  and  kindly  con- 
sideration, in  her  behavior  toward  others. 

"  Seeketh  not  her  own":  love  is  unselfish  and 
self-sacrificing,  and  ready  to  yield  her  own  for  the 
sake  of  benefitting  others.  She  is  concerned  rather 
about  others'  interests  than  her  own.  Love  is  ready 
to  give  self  for  others.  (See  i  Cor.  10:33,  2  Cor. 
12 'A ^,  15,  8 19,  etc.) 

"  Is  not  irritable-and-ill-tempered  " :  love  is  not  ir- 
ritable and  irascible,  is  not  ill-tempered  and  quick- 
tempered, "  does  not  become  incensed,"  as  the  un- 
loving  do  w^hen  offended. 

"  Taketh  not  account  of  evil-treatment":  i.e., 
does  not  take  account  of  the  evil  which  others  do  to 
her,  does  not  keep  it  in  memory  and  cherish  it  against 
them.  Rather,  love  forgives.  It  is  love  that  covers 
a  multitude  of  sins,  i  Pet.  4:8,  cf.  Matt.  18:21,  22. 
"  Love  in  its  essential  nature  is  forgiveness,  and 
that  not  of  some  but  of  many  sins"  (Huther). 
The  w^ord  here  translated  "  take  account,"  is  a  word 
which  has  business  associations  and  a  commercial 
flavor,  like  the  English  word  "  account."  It  means 
to  keep  account  of,  to  charge  to  one.  Cf.  its  cognate 
form  in  Philem.  18,  where  Paul  says,  "  charge  it  to 
me  ";  and  vs.  19,  "  I  will  pay  it."     Thus  love  does 


I20  The  Model  Prayer 

no  book-keeping  that  is  grounded  in  feelings  of  re- 
sentment and  purposes  of  retaliation.  Love  cher- 
ishes no  grudges  but  is  glad  to  forgive  and  forget. 

Vs.  6: — "  Rejoiceth  not  at  unrighteousness,  but 
rejoiceth  w^ith  the  truth."  .  .  .  Love's  joy  is  here 
described  as  bound  up  vv^ith  the  triumph  of  right  and 
truth.  Love  finds  no  pleasure  in  vi^rong  or  false- 
hood. And  he  who  is  ruled  by  love  cannot  be  glad 
at  unrighteousness  or  untruth,  in  himself  or  in 
others,  no  matter  how  much  in  a  material  way  he 
may  profit  by  it.  For  any  material  advantage 
bought  at  the  price  of  right  and  of  truth  is  too 
dearly  bought.  Love  cannot  be  glad  at  such  a  bar- 
gain. Love  wants  one  to  attain  the  highest  well- 
being,  and  is  wise  enough  to  know  this  can  never  be 
by  the  way  of  falsehood  and  wrong.  Such  is  the 
relation  betw^een  love  and  right  that  we  cannot  vio- 
late the  latter  and  please  the  former.  Love  and 
right  go  together,  and  with  them  truth,  and  con- 
science, and  God.  And  they  all  lay  down  the  same 
rule  of  conduct  for  men.  Work  no  ill  to  your 
neighbor,  be  true  with  him,  do  him  no  wrong,  not 
even  the  negative  wrong  of  failing  to  aid  him  in  time 
of  need.  And  love  is  thus  the  guide  to  right  and 
truth  and  God.  To  follow  her  behest  is  to  attain 
and  enjoy  them  all. 

Vs.  7 :  — *'  Beareth  with  all  things,"  i.  e.,  puts  up 
with,  patiently  and  cheerfully  withstands  and  bears, 
all  burdens,  privations,  trouble,  anxieties,  toil,  hard- 
ships, etc.,  occasioned  by  our  relations  with  others, 
and  the  duties  and  responsibilities  of  our  lives. 
Thus  Paul  bore  with  all  hardships  and  privations, 


St.  Paul's  Love  Chapter  I2i 

In  order  that  he  might  not  hinder  the  Gospel  of 
Christ  (i  Cor.  9:12).  Love's  capacity  to  bear  with 
the  trials  and  cares  of  life  graciously  and  joyously 
is  truly  heroic.     Love  is  a  maker  of  heroes. 

"  Believeth  all  things  ":  love  is  not  distrustful  and 
suspicious,  but  has  a  sane  and  wholesome  trust  and 
confidence  in  others.  Love  has  a  tendency  to  put  on 
a  neighbor's  actions  and  words  the  best  admissible 
construction.  And,  above  all,  love  believes  in 
others.  And  how  wonderful  the  power  of  love's 
simple  trust  to  impel  others  to  live  up  to  it !  Love's 
confidence  is  a  challenge  to  all  the  good  there  is  in 
one.  How  many  there  are  who  make  something  of 
themselves  in  life  just  because  some  one  believes  in 
them!  It  may  be  a  pastor's  quiet  faith  in  a  way- 
ward man,  it  may  be  a  mother's  trust  in  an  erring 
boy.  In  any  case,  it  is  a  confidence  which  saves. 
One  cannot  easily  go  wrong  for  good-and-all  when 
there  is  some  one  who  believes  in  him,  because  he 
loves  him ! 

"  Hopeth  all  things":  love  is  characterized  by  a 
sane  and  reasonable  optimism  regarding  the  future, 
both  of  individual  men  and  of  life  in  general.  Love 
is  not  pessimistic  in  spirit,  but  expects  from  indi- 
viduals and  from  life  good,  and  not  evil.  Love  and 
hope  go  together,  inseparable  by  nature.  On  the 
other  hand,  "what  hope  has  the  loveless  life? 
What  hope  is  his  in  the  dark  day  of  failure?  His 
dreams  have  vanished  and  he  is  left  alone  to  gloomy 
forebodings."  But  "  love  has  no  room  for  despair. 
Love  smiles  even  when  the  tears  are  falling  like  rain. 
Love  .  .  .  never     loses     heart.     Love     meets     the 


122  The  Model  Prayer 

mighty  evils  of  the  world  and  aflame  on  her  banner 
is  the  morning  star  "  (E.  Daplyn) .  Love  labors  on, 
unfaltering,  undoubting,  sustained  by  an  enduring 
and  invincible  confidence  that  all  will  yet  be  well; 
and  for  this  very  reason  love  is  at  last  triumphant. 

"  Endureth  all  things  " :  endurance  is  a  bearing  up 
without  breaking  down,  a  standing  fast  without 
yielding,  under  pressure  of  the  evils  of  life  (see  Jas. 
5:11,  Matt.  24:13).  One  endures  afflictions,  suf- 
ferings, persecutions,  cares  and  distresses,  and  all 
those  features  of  our  experience  which  may  be  de- 
scribed as  heavy  and  burdensome,  and  calculated  to 
break  down  our  staying  powers.  And  the  stress  and 
strain  of  such  ills  may  be  life-long.  But  here  too 
love  faileth  not,  but  with  heroic  steadfastness  holds 
up  under  the  load  of  life,  and  so  endures  to  the  end. 

On  verse  7  Meyer  says:  "  Note  how  the  expres- 
sions rise  as  they  follow  each  other  in  this  verse, 
which  is  beautiful  in  its  simplicity:  if  love  encounter 
from  others  what  may  seem  too  hard  to  be  endured, 
all  things  she  bears;  if  she  meet  what  may  cause  dis- 
trust, all  things  she  trusts;  if  she  meet  what  may 
destroy  hope  in  one's  neighbor,  all  things  she  hopes; 
if  she  encounter  what  may  lead  to  giving  way, 
against  all  she  holds  out." 

And  this  brings  us  to  the  third  division  of  the 
chapter,  vss.  8-13,  which  set  forth  the  imperishable 
eternal  nature  of  love,  as  contrasted  with  the  tem- 
poral and  transient  "  spiritual  gifts  "  which  were  so 
unduly  prized  and  misused  at  Corinth.  So  men 
often  fix  their  chief  interest  upon  the  incidental 
rather  than  the  essential,  the  perishable  and  transient 


St.  Paul's  Love  Chapter  123 

rather  than  the  enduring  and  eternal. 

Vs.  8 :  —  In  this  verse  the  "  never  faileth  "  is  the 
opposite  of  "  shall  cease  "  or  "  shall  be  done  away  " ; 
and  the  equivalent  of  the  **  abideth"  of  vs.  13.  It 
therefore  means  that  love  is  permanent  and  endur- 
ing. The  "  spiritual  gifts,"  appointed  for  the  good 
of  the  church  during  a  part  or  even  all  of  her 
earthly  history,  are  by  their  purpose  and  function 
and  very  nature  temporary.  Love,  on  the  contrary, 
is  as  enduring  as  Christian  character,  as  immortal  as 
the  saved  soul,  as  eternal  as  God  himself ;  for  love 
"  abideth  "  (vs.  13).  And  in  the  very  nature  of  the 
case  this  must  be  so;  for  love  is  an  indispensable 
element  of  Christian  character,  an  element  without 
which  one  would  not  be  a  Christian  and  could  not 
attain  salvation  (vss.  1-3). 

Vss.  9,  10:  —  Proof  of  vs.  8.  The  fragmentary, 
the  partial,  the  immature,  the  imperfect,  cannot  be 
the  enduring  and  the  final.  Present  knowledge, 
present  prophecy,  are  but  fragmentary  and  incom- 
plete, and  as  such  are  temporary.  But  the  perfect  is 
to  come.  And  when  it  comes  the  partial  and  imper- 
fact  will  pass  away.  Necessarily  so.  ''  With  the 
advent  of  the  absolute  the  imperfect  finite  ceases  to 
exist,  as  the  dawn  ceases  after  the  rising  of  the  sun  " 
(Meyer).  So  all  our  present  knowledge  is  tran- 
sitory and  destined  to  be  outgrown.  And  so  the 
words  of  the  poet  are  true: 

"  Our  little  systems  have  their  day, 
They  have  their  day  and  cease  to  be; 
They  are  but  broken  lights  of  Thee, 
And  Thou,   O  Lord,   art  more  than  they." 


124  The  Model  Prayer 

Vs.  II : — Illustration  of  the  thought  of  vss.  8-10. 
Our  condition  in  the  present  time,  in  knowledge, 
habits  of  thought,  etc.,  compared  with  what  we  are 
to  be  ''  when  that  which  is  perfect  shall  come,"  is 
like  the  condition  of  a  child  compared  with  that  of 
a  man,  like  the  immature  compared  with  the  mature, 
the  rudimentary  compared  with  the  complete. 
"  Fragmentary  revelations,  fragmentary  inspirations 
to  inarticulate  praise,  fragmentary  insights  into  mys- 
teries, corresponds  only  to  the  time  of  immaturity 
and  imperfection;  as  childish  utterances,  aims,  judg- 
ments, correspond  to  the  time  of  childhood  "  (Mas- 
sie).  The  figure  suggests  that  as  we  pass  into  the 
age  of  spiritual  maturity  and  completeness  we  are  to 
outgrow  present  things. 

On  this  verse  Dr.  Charles  Hodge  well  says: 
*'  The  feelings  and  thoughts  of  a  child  are  true  and 
just,  in  so  far  as  they  relate  to  the  natural  impres- 
sions of  experience.  They  are  neither  irrational  nor 
false,  but  simply  inadequate.  In  like  manner  our 
view  of  divine  things  will  hereafter  be  different  from 
what  it  is  now.  But  it  does  not  thence  follow  that 
our  present  views  are  false.  They  are  just,  as  far  as 
they  go ;  they  are  only  inadequate.  It  is  no  part  of 
the  apostle's  object  to  unsettle  our  confidence  in  what 
God  now  communicates  by  His  word  and  Spirit  to 
His  children,  but  simply  to  prevent  our  being  satis- 
fied with  the  partial  and  imperfect."  And  especially 
to  abate  our  pride  in  present  knowledge,  and  encour- 
age us  to  expect  something  better. 

Vs.  12:  —  Justifies  the  illustration  of  vs.  11,  as 
being  truly  illustrative  of  the  thought  of  vss.  8-10. 


St.  Paul's  Love  Chapter  125 

Herein  also  the  conditions  of  present  knowledge  and 
of  knowledge  in  the  age  to  come  are  brought  out 
more  sharply. 

"  Now  "  means  in  the  present  age  of  the  imperfect 
and  partial;  "  then  "  means  in  the  age  to  come,  the 
period  of  consummation  and  perfection. 

"  By  means  of  a  mirror,  obscurely  " :  Our  pres- 
ent knowledge  of  divine  things  is  not  immediate 
knowledge,  but  comes  to  us  through  an  imperfect 
medium,  giving  us  a  blurred  outline,  with  many 
points  of  haziness  or  obscurity.  We  must  think  here 
of  the  imperfectly  reflecting  polished-metal  mirrors  of 
the  ancients,  not  of  our  fine  modern  mirrors,  which 
would  not  so  well  illustrate  Paul's  thought.  Our 
present  means  of  knowledge  are  indirect  and  imper- 
fect, and  the  knowledge  thus  gained  cannot  be  per- 
fect and  complete.  Nor  can  it  be  final  and  endur- 
ing. 

"  Face  to  face  " :  of  immediate  vision,  which  gives 
direct  knowledge.  Such  will  be  our  knowledge  in 
that  age  ''when  the  perfect  shall  come"  (vs.  10). 
God  is  conceived  of  as  the  object  seen  and  known,  as 
the  last  clauses  of  the  verse  show  (see  Num.  12:8, 
and  especially  Matt,  5:8,  i  John  3:2,  3,  Rev.  22:4, 
etc.). 

"  Then  shall  I  know  fully  just  as  also  I  was  fully 
known  " :  In  that  future  age  of  the  complete  and 
perfect  "  my  knowledge  of  God  will  be  so  complete 
as  to  correspond  to  the  divine  knowledge  which  at 
my  conversion  made  me  its  object  "  (Meyer).  I.  e., 
I  shall  then  have  a  (relatively)  complete  knowledge 
of  the  divine  nature,  counsels,  will,  and  ways,  which 


126  The  Model  Prayer 

are  known  to  me  now  only  *'  in  part  "  and  indirectly. 
This  likeness  or  correspondence  of  our  future  knowl- 
edge of  the  divine  to  the  divine  knowledge  of  us  is, 
of  course,  only  relative  {not  absolute). 

**  I  was  fully  known  " :  I  became  at  my  conver- 
sion the  object  of  the  divine  recognition  and  appre- 
hension. This  sense  is  certified  by  the  past  (aorist) 
tense  of  the  verb,  and  by  Pauline  use  of  the  same 
expression  elsewhere,  e.  g.,  i  Cor.  8:3,  Gal.  4:9.  At 
one's  conversion  he  "comes  to  know  God"  (Gal. 
4:9,  cf.  John  17:3),  but  a  more  important  fact  is 
that  he  *' is  known  by  God"  (Gal.  4:9),  that  is, 
God  takes  knowledge  of  him. 

Vs.  13:  —  Faith,  hope,  and  love  are  not,  like  the 
*'  spiritual  gifts,"  transitory,  but  endure  forever. 

"  Faith  " :  is  here  not  the  wonder-working  faith 
of  vs.  2,  but  faith  in  the  usual  Pauline  sense,  i.  e., 
saving  faith  in  Christ,  which  in  the  world  to  come 
will  continue  as  an  abiding  and  inalienable  trust  in 
the  eternally  efficacious  atonement  of  Christ.  *'  The 
everlasting  fellowship  with  Christ  in  the  future  age 
is  not  conceivable  at  all  without  the  everlasting  con- 
tinuance of  the  living  ground  and  bond  of  this  fel- 
lowship, which  is  none  other  than  faith"  (Meyer). 

"  Hope  " :  in  the  usual  Pauline  sense  of  hope  of 
everlasting  blessedness.  "  This  abides  for  the  glori- 
fied with  regard  to  the  everlasting  duration  and  con- 
tinued development  of  their  glory"  (Meyer). 
Such  development  is  to  be  expected,  since  the  future 
glory  is  essentially  life,  and  life  can  hardly  be  con- 
ceived as  static. 

"  Love  " :  in  the  usual  Pauline  sense  for  the  lofty 


St.  PauVs  Love  Chapter  127 


spiritual  Christian  love  which  is  indispensable  to 
Christian  character  and  life  (see  vss.  1—3).  This 
love  forms  the  subject  of  the  next  study. 

*' Abideth  ":  the  opposite  of  "  shall  cease,"  vs.  8; 
i.  e.,  continues  forever.  Thus  Paul  says  that  in  the 
future  age,  into  which  the  "  spiritual  gifts  "  will  not 
continue.  Christians  will  never  cease  to  believe,  to 
hope,  to  love.  This  is  all  the  more  evident  when  we 
consider  that  such  essential  elements  of  Christian 
character  can  never  pass  away,  so  long  as  saved  souls 
endure.  And  so  the  three  great  Christian  graces 
endure  on  into  and  in  the  everlasting  life.  Faith  in 
God,  Hope  in  Him,  Love  for  Him  —  these  also  in 
and  for  our  brethren  —  are  to  be  part  of  the  life  of 
heaven ;  in  their  very  nature  they  can  never  be  done 
away  but  are  eternal. 

"  The  greatest  of  these  is  love  " —  love  is  greater 
because  of  higher  value  in  practical  use  and  service 
(i  Cor.  14:1-5,  etc.).  '*  Faith  saves  ourselves,  but 
love  benefits  others"  (Hodge).  "Love  gives  faith 
and  hope  their  highest  value  in  redeeming  them  from 
self-centered  aims  "  (Massie).  Usefulness  is  Paul's 
standard  of  greatness.  With  him  that  is  greatest 
which  is  most  useful.  So  also  with  Christ,  who 
taught  that  in  His  kingdom  greatness  is  conditioned 
on  usefulness  (see  Matt.  20:25-28).  He  who 
would  be  great  in  that  kingdom  must  strive  to 
abound  in  loving  service  and  helpfulness. 

In  conclusion  three  remarks  may  be  made.  First, 
in  interpreting  this  chapter  we  have  to  deal  with 
some  matters  hard  to  understand,  because  the 
"  spiritual  gifts  "  largely  are  veiled  in  the  obscurity 


128  The  Model  Prayer 

that  attaches  to  endowments  and  experiences  of  the 
early  Christians,  '*  which  then  used  to  happen,  but 
now  do  not  occur"  (Chrysostom).  Second,  love, 
although  a  "  fruit  of  the  Spirit  "  (Gal.  5  :22) ,  is  not 
to  be  regarded  as  a  "  spiritual  gift  "  (charism),  like 
"  knowledge,"  "  prophecy,"  etc. ;  for  the  "  gifts  "  are 
distributed  only  to  certain  special  individuals,  while 
love  is  common  to  all  Christians.  And  third,  we 
must  note  and  appreciate  Paul's  wisdom  in  center- 
ing religon  in  the  heart.  Religion  becomes  power- 
less when  it  magnifies  the  intellectual  at  the  expense 
of  the  life-controlling  sentiments  and  emotions. 
These  are  fundamental  and  all-determining;  out  of 
the  heart  are  the  issues  of  life.  The  head  must  not 
supplant  the  heart  —  for  in  the  latter  the  eternal 
graces  of  character  have  their  home.  And  supreme 
among  these  graces  is  Love,  indispensable  condition 
of  blessedness  on  earth,  and  sure  guaranty  of  happi- 
ness in  heaven ! 


VII 

A  STUDY  OF  LOVE 

THE  vaguest  ideas  seem  to  prevail  among  us  as 
to  what  Love,  in  the  New  Testament  sense, 
Christian  Love,  is.  This  is  unfortunate.  For  Love 
is  the  supreme  grace  of  the  Christian  heart  and  life, 
and  as  such  ought  to  be  definitely  understood  by 
Chrstian  people,  especially  those  called  upon  to  teach. 

One  reason  doubtless  for  the  vagueness  of  the  con- 
cept "  love  "  in  our  thinking  is  that  our  language 
provides  only  one  word  for  all  the  wide  range  of 
application  and  shades  of  thought  covered  by  this 
concept.  Thus  we  say  God  '*  loves "  men,  the 
mother  *'  loves  "  her  child,  the  husband  "  loves  "  his 
wife,  friend  "  loves  "  friend,  we  are  commanded  to 
''  love  "  our  enemies,  a  patriot  "  loves  "  his  country, 
a  dog  "  loves "  his  master,  one  "  loves  "  to  do  a 
thing,  etc.  These  are  widely  diverse  ideas,  all  ex- 
pressed by  one  and  the  same  word,  necessarily  a 
vague  general  word.  And  constant  use  of  such  a 
vague  general  term  tends  to  vagueness  of  thinking. 
Whether  or  not  we  agree  that  it  would  be  a  good 
thing  to  have  different  words  to  express  these  diverse 
ideas,  it  is  at  least  evident  that  there  can  be  no 
clearness  of  thinking  until  we  discriminate  these 
diverse  "  loves  "  each  from  the  other,  and  give  each 
its  own  definite  and  proper  content  of  thought. 

The  sentiment,  or  emotional  attitude  of  soul, 
129 


I30  The  Model  Prayer 

which  we  call  love,  is  highly  complex,  involving  in 
varying  degrees  a  large  number  of  factors  or  ele- 
ments. In  different  cases  of  love  one  or  another  of 
these  factors  may  become  so  prominent  as  to  be  the 
determining  factor,  while  the  others  are  present  only 
in  lesser  degree,  or  one  or  more  of  them  entirely 
wanting.  Thus,  according  to  their  determining 
factors,  diverse  specific  kinds  of  love  may  be  distin- 
guished. Love  is  a  genus,  of  which  there  are  various 
more  or  less  clearly  distinct  species.  It  is  our  pur- 
pose here  to  describe  some  of  these  species  of  love,  as 
an  aid  toward  forming  a  definite  idea  of  Christian 
love,  i.  e.,  love  in  the  New  Testament  sense. 

Ancient  thought,  at  the  time  the  New  Testament 
books  were  written,  clearly  distinguished  four  main 
types  of  love ;  and  the  Greek  language,  in  which  the 
books  were  written,  had  four  principal  sets  of  words 
for  "  love,"  each  with  its  own  shades  of  meaning  and 
special  implications.  Only  three  of  these  sets  of 
terms  are  represented  in  the  New  Testament.  It  is, 
to  be  sure,  the  types  of  love  themselves,  rather  than 
the  terms  employed  to  express  them  in  New  Testa- 
ment times,  that  form  the  subject  of  our  study. 
And  owing  to  looseness  of  usage,  and  changes  in 
usage  from  one  period  to  another,  there  is  no  exact 
correspondence  between  the  sets  of  words  and  the 
main  tj^pes  of  love.  Yet  there  is  a  loose  general 
correspondence.  The  terms  reveal  the  main  varie- 
ties of  love  distinguished  by  the  subtle  mind  of  the 
Greek,  and  will  serve  as  useful  aids  in  our  study. 

The  main  types  of  love  just  spoken  of  were  as  fol- 
lows: 


A  Study  of  Love  131 

I.  The  form  of  love  based  on  sex  and  sex  instinct, 
erotic  love,  sexual  passion.  Normally  this  love  oc- 
curs only  between  male  and  female  of  the  same 
species.  It  Is  not  intrinsically  a  base  or  impure  love, 
and  must  not  be  confounded  with  lust  (Greek 
epithumia) .  Such  love  is  natural  and  necessary  in 
the  life  of  mankind  (whom  God  made  "  male  and 
female  "),  and  entirely  proper  between  husband  and 
wife,  young  man  and  maiden  (as  lovers)  ;  but  should 
not  occur  between  father  and  daughter,  mother  and 
son,  brother  and  sister,  uncle  and  niece,  and  in  other 
close  degrees  of  consanguinity.  This  form  of  love 
was  frequently  expressed  in  acient  Greek  by  the 
words  epoj?,  Ipdoi,  eyaa/xai  (noun  and  verbs,  trans- 
literated eros,  eraoj  eramai,  Latin  ajnor,  amo). 
This  was  one  of  the  commonest  and  most  charac- 
teristic uses  of  this  group  of  w^ords.  It  was  not  their 
only  use,  however;  and  the  other  Greek  words  for 
"love"  (to  be  given  later)  also  were  used  for 
sexual  love,  each  presenting  it  from  a  different  angle. 
The  eros  words  present  love  as  passion,  and  thus  are 
appropriately  and  frequently  used  to  describe  the 
passionate  love  grounded  in  sex.  But  they  might 
also  be  used  of  any  love  which  was,  or  was  conceived 
to  be,  of  an  ardent,  intense,  passionate  nature.  Thus 
these  words  were  used  on  occasion  of  the  ardent  love 
of  children  for  their  mother,  and  of  friends  for  a 
friend;  and  even  of  ardent  love  of  men  for  God, — 
as  one  might  speak  in  English,  with  all  purity  and 
propriety,  of  having  a  passion  for  God  (cf.,  the 
thought  in  Ps.  42:1,  2).  The  New  Testament  has 
not  much  to  say  directly  of  sexual  love  in  its  pure 


132  The  Model  Prayer 

forms,  and  does  not  use  the  words  of  the  eros  group 
at  all. 

2.  A  second  form  of  love  is  ''  natural  affection/' 
i.  e.,  the  love  grounded  in  natural  or  social  relations, 
and  expressive  of  "  the  inner  life  of  the  heart  which 
belongs  to  man  by  nature"  (Schmidt).  This  love 
is  inherent  in  man's  nature  and  the  conditions  of  his 
life  as  a  social  being,  and  appears  as  "  a  natural 
movement  of  the  soul  —  as  something  almost  like 
gravitation  or  some  other  force  of  blind  nature  " 
(Warfield).  This  is  a  love  which  has  nothing  to 
do  with  sex.  It  grows  out  of  such  relations  as  those 
of  blood  kinship  or  common  nationality.  It  is  the 
"  love  "  which  should  be  felt  by  every  member  of  a 
natural  or  social  group  for  every  other  member.  It 
involves  a  recognition  of  common  interests  with 
others,  due  to  being  bound  up  with  them  in  common 
relations  in  life;  and  elements  of  sympathy,  esteem, 
and  affection,  and  in  some  of  its  forms  much  of  ten- 
derness. In  its  proper  character  it  is  a  noble  and 
indispensable  "  love  "  in  the  life  of  humankind. 

The  words  commonly  used  by  the  Greeks  to  ex- 
press this  species  of  love  were  o-ropyr/,  crrepyw  (noun 
and  verb,  transliterated  storge,  stergo) .  These 
words  present  love  from  the  angle  of  its  naturalness. 
They  might  on  occasion  be  used  of  any  form  of  love 
(as  the  sex  love),  which  they  presented  from  their 
own  peculiar  point  of  view  as  natural.  And  other 
Greek  words  for  love  were  used  of  the  love  of 
natural  affection,  w^hen  presenting  it  from  some  other 
point  of  view  than  that  of  its  naturalness.  But  the 
use  of  the  storge  words  was  the  typical  one.     The 


A  Study  of  Love  133 

Greeks  employed  these  words  to  express  the  mutual 
love  of  parents  and  children;  the  natural  affection 
between  brothers  and  sisters;  the  "love"  of  king 
for  people  and  people  for  king ;  the  affection  between 
a  mother  country  and  her  colonies;  occasionally  the 
love  of  friend  for  friend;  even  the  love  of  dogs  for 
their  master. 

The  cases  just  cited  are  t5^pical  examples  of  this 
kind  of  love.  In  the  relations  indicated,  and  other 
similar  relations,  this  love  ought  to  exist  as  a  natural 
and  kindly  affection,  suitable  and  beneficent,  and 
altogether  to  be  expected  and  desired.  Its  worthi- 
ness and  natural  obligatoriness  are  felt  when  we 
think  what  its  absence  would  mean.  In  such  ab- 
sence the  fundamental  claims  of  members  of  natural 
or  social  groups  upon  each  other,  such  as  those  of 
blood  kinship  or  common  nationality,  or  indeed  com- 
mon humanity,  would  be  disregarded,  and  life  would 
become  cold  and  hard  and  inhuman.  The  Greek 
term  astorgos,  "  without  natural  affection,"  implies 
a  condition  of  heart  that  is  unnatural  and  mon- 
strous. The  New  Testament  associates  persons  in 
this  condition  with  covenant-breakers  and  the  im- 
placable and  unmerciful  (Rom.  1:31,  2  Tim.  3:3). 

Only  the  stem  of  the  storge  words  is  found  in  the 
New  Testament,  and  only  three  times,  in  compound 
words  which  are  always  well  translated  in  the  A.  V. : 
astorgos,  "without  natural  affection"  (Rom.  1:31, 
2  Tim.  3:3),  filostorgos,  "kindly  affectioned " 
(Rom.  12:10). 

3.  The  third  form  of  love  we  are  to  consider  is 
the  love  of  fondness,  of  warm  personal  attachment. 


134  The  Model  Prayer 

of  tender  affection.  This  love  is  grounded  in  af- 
finity of  spirit  and  in  the  attractiveness  of  the  one 
loved  to  the  one  who  loves.  It  is  the  love  of  liking 
(if  the  expression  may  pass),  the  attitude  of  soul 
toward  what  is  perceived  to  be  agreeable  and  affords 
pleasure.  This  love  presupposes  that  the  one  who 
loves  finds  pleasure  in,  takes  delight  in,  the  one 
loved.  What  we  call  friendship  is  one  of  its  com- 
monest and  most  typical  varieties. 

To  express  this  kind  of  love,  the  Greeks  commonly 
used  the  terms  <^tAia,  t^iAew  (noun  and  verb,  trans- 
literated filia,  fileo,  Latin  amic'itia,  cf.  also  <^tAo?, 
filos,  *' friend,"  Latin  amicus).  These  terms  had 
other  uses  also ;  in  fact  the  filia  words  were  the  most 
general  terms  for  love  in  the  Greek  of  the  classical 
period,  and  were  applied  to  every  kind  and  degree 
of  love,  but  always  from  their  own  special  angle  or 
point  of  view,  that  of  pleasure  or  delight.  This  love 
of  personal  affection  might  also  be  described  by 
other  words  for  "  love,"  if  it  were  desired  to  present 
it  from  some  other  point  of  view  than  that  of  de- 
light. But  the  filia  words  represent  the  character- 
istic mode  of  expressing  this  third  t>^pe  of  love  at  the 
time  the  New  Testament  was  written. 

The  love  of  warm  personal  affection  when 
worthily  bestowed  is  an  eminently  noble  form  of 
love.  It  appears  on  suitable  occasions  in  the  New 
Testament,  expressed  by  the  filia  words  in  their 
typical  sense.  Consider  the  implications  of  the  ten- 
der filoi,  "friends,"  of  John  15:15.  See  also  the 
tender  personal  affection  of  John  11 13,  36  (contrast 
11:5),  and  John  20:2   (contrast  21:7,  20).     Also 


A  Study  of  Love  135 

John  21:15-17,  Titus  3:15,  i  Cor.  16:22,  John 
16:27,  John  5:20,  where  the  terms  are  used  with 
special  implications  to  be  discussed  later,  but  always 
with  the  implication  of  warm  personal  affection. 
This  form  of  love  appears  relatively  infrequently  in 
the  New  Testament,  being  usually  supplanted  by  the 
fourth  form  of  love,  next  to  be  considered. 

4.  The  fourth  form  of  love  that  claims  our  atten- 
tion is  the  love  of  esteem  or  appreciation,  a  love 
grounded  in  the  sense  of  worth  of  the  one  loved. 
It  is  the  love  which  values  or  prizes  its  object,  and 
regards  this  object  as  dear  or  precious.  This  is  a 
highly  complex  and  variable  form  of  love,  now  one 
element  and  now  another  being  more  prominent  in 
it.  But  it  is  a  perfectly  distinct  and  highly  im- 
portant form  of  love,  indeed  for  our  purpose  the  most 
important  form  of  love ;  and  we  shall  attempt  later  to 
define  it  quite  fully. 

To  express  this  form  of  love  the  appropriate  Greek 
words  were  aydiTr],  dyaTraw  (noun  and  verb,  trans- 
literated agape,  agapao,  Latin  dilectio).  In  Greek 
usage  these  words  had  a  wide  range,  being  applied 
to  almost  any  form  of  love,  though  of  course  carry- 
ing with  them  their  special  implications.  But  they 
were  etj^mologically  and  intrinsically  noble  words  for 
love,  the  noblest  in  the  Greek  language;  and  could 
have  acquired  base  associations  only  with  difficulty. 
It  is  no  accident  that  these  words  were  chosen  by 
the  writers  of  the  New^  Testament  to  express  the 
lofty  idea  of  Christian  love.  They  were  the  best 
and  purest  words  available. 

The  love  agape,  from  the  New  Testament  point 


136  The  Model  Prayer 

of  view,  may  be  described  as  a  lofty,  unselfish  es- 
teem and  good-will,  a  benevolent  and  kindly  dispo- 
sition toward  one,  a  love  which  regards  one  as  of 
value  and  precious,  and  for  that  reason  deliberately 
chooses  one  as  the  object  of  its  kindly  beneficent 
activity,  and  wills  and  actively  promotes  his  highest 
good.  The  element  of  warm  personal  affection 
characteristic  of  the  love  filia  is  not  prominent  in 
agape,  may  indeed  be  entirely  lacking.  And  yet 
agape  is  love,  and  may  be  intense  and  passionate  with 
all  the  intensity  which  a  sense  of  infinite  value  and 
preciousness  in  its  object  may  produce.  In  the  love 
agape  the  value  and  preciousness  are  recognized,  not 
in  a  cold,  detached,  impersonal  way,  but  as  a  matter 
of  deep  personal  concern;  if  I  love  {agapao) ,  the  one 
loved  is  dear,  appears  as  of  value  and  precious,  to 
me.  Whatever  other  elements  may  be  involved  in 
the  love  agape,  in  New  Testament  and  Christian 
usage  its  distinguishing  characteristic  is  a  lofty  spirit- 
ual good  will,  grounded  in  a  sense  of  value  or  worth, 
disposing  one  kindly  toward  another,  and  causing 
him  to  wish  and  will  and  so  far  as  possible  promote 
the  other's  highest  well-being.  This  special  form  of 
love  is  the  highest  and  noblest  of  all  loves;  and  is 
the  distinctive  mark  of  the  Christian,  see  John  13  135 
"  Hereby  shall  all  men  know  that  ye  are  my  dis- 
ciples, if  5^e  have  love  {agape)  one  for  another." 
Also  see  i  John  4 :8a,  "  He  that  loveth  not  knoweth 
not  God";  and  i  Cor.  13:1-3. 

The  words  agape  and  agapao,  noun  and  verb,  are 
very  common  in  the  New  Testament,  being  found 
there  about  two  hundred  forty  times,  to  expreess  ( i ) 


A  Study  of  Love  137 

the  love  of  God  for  men,  (2)  the  love  of  men  for 
God,  and  (3)  the  love  of  men  for  each  other. 
Filia  and  fileo,  in  the  sense  of  personal  ''  love,"  occur 
less  than  twenty  times.  So  agape,  in  the  New  Tes- 
tament sense  of  the  word,  is  the  great  distinctive 
New  Testament  and  Christian  love,  and  as  such  is 
worthy  our  careful  study. 

We  have  now  passed  briefly  in  review  four  main 
kinds  of  love:  (i)  the  love  based  in  sex,  erotic  love; 
(2)  the  love  of  "natural  affection";  (3)  the  love 
of  warm  personal  affection  ("  friendly  "  love)  ;  (4) 
the  love  of  esteem,  appreciation,  and  lofty  good- 
will. In  this  review  it  has  become  apparent  that, 
from  the  New  Testament  point  of  view,  the  forms 
of  love  that  chiefly  concern  us  are  the  third  and  the 
fourth,  those  expressed  in  the  New  Testament  by 
fiiliay  fiileo,  and  agape,  agapao,  respectively.  These 
two  we  must  now  describe  more  fully,  and  bring 
out  their  diverse  nature  and  implications,  as  they 
appear  in  the  New  Testament  (to  whose  usage  our 
attention  will  now  be  mostly  confined). 

The  third  love,  filia,  fileo,  warm  personal  affec- 
tion, fondness,  friendship,  is  a  love  grounded  in  the 
attractiveness  of  its  object;  has  in  it  more  of  sense 
and  emotion,  less  of  active  intelligence  and  deliberate 
choice;  is  more  dependent  on  personal  presence  and 
association ;  and  is  determined  largely  from  without 
(i.  e.,  by  the  perceived  attractiveness  of  the  loved 
object,  which  attractiveness  determines  the  love). 

The  fourth  love,  agape,  agapao,  in  the  New  Tes- 
tament sense,  a  lofty  spiritual  benevolence,  is  a  love 
grounded  in  the  disposition  and  attitude  of  soul,  i.  e., 


138  The  Model  Prayer 

in  the  character,  of  the  one  who  loves,  and  thus  Is 
independent  of  the  attractiveness  of  its  object;  it  has 
in  it  little  or  nothing  of  sense  and  emotional  in- 
clination, but  is  a  matter  of  deliberate  intelligent 
choice  and  will;  is  independent  of  personal  presence 
and  association;  and  is  determined  almost  wholly 
from  within  (i.  e.,  by  the  nature  of  the  one  who 
loves) . 

These  considerations  (to  which  others  will 
be  added  later  for  the  fourth  love,  agape,  dis- 
criminate the  two  kinds  of  love  under  conr 
sideration  clearly  from  one  another,  and  make 
it  plain  that  filia  depends  largely  on  the  ob- 
ject of  the  *'  love,"  i.  e.,  in  the  main  is  objec- 
tively determined ;  while  agape  is  an  outgrowth 
and  expression  of  the  loving  person's  character  and 
spiritual  disposition,  and  thus  is  almost  entirely  sub- 
jectively determined.  This  is  especially  true  of  the 
New  Testament  and  Christian  agape.  But  in  any 
case  what  elements  of  worth  shall  be  discerned  in 
another,  and  what  estimate  shall  be  put  upon  them, 
and  what  attitude  shall  be  assumed  toward  that 
other,  depend  almost  entirely  upon  the  nature  and 
disposition  of  him  who  does  the  discerning  and 
forms  the  estimate. 

The  relatively  sensuous  (by  which  is  not  meant 
sensual)  quality  of  the  love  filia,  and  the  non-sen- 
suous quality  of  agape,  may  be  illustrated  by  certain 
facts  of  Greek  and  New  Testament  usage.  ( i )  A 
kiss  is  termed  a  filema,  Rom.  i6:i6,  i  Cor.  16:20, 
Luke  22:48,  etc.,  but  never  an  agapema  (although 
agape  may  be  the  motive  to  a  filema,  i  Pet.  5:14)  ; 


A  Study  of  Love  139 

and  to  kiss  (verb)  is  filein,  Mark  14:14  etc.  And 
in  modern  Greek  fileo  has  come  to  have  no  other 
meaning  than  to  kiss.  (2)  Pleasure  is  a  sen- 
suous thing,  and  "  pleasure-loving "  is  expressed 
in  Greek,  as  we  should  expect,  by  filedonos, 
2  Tim.  3:4,  cf.  filoinos,  "fond  of  wine"  (Plato, 
etc.)  ;  while  agapedonos,  agapoinos,  owing  to 
the  non-sensuous  character  of  the  love  agape, 
would  be  fairly  unthinkable  compounds!  (The 
Greek  filotheos,  *'  loving  God,"  2  Tim.  3 14,  etc., 
presents  no  difficulty,  as  the  idea  expressed  here  is 
doubtless  the  relatively  sensuous  one  ''  fond  of 
God.")  (3)  The  love  filia  implies  personal  pres- 
ence and  association,  suggested  by  the  usage  of  the 
word,  and  by  the  ideas  delight  in,  fondness,  cherish- 
ing, treating  affectionately,  welcoming  in  a  friendly 
manner  (as  a  guest),  showing  signs  of  love  (by 
caressing,  kissing,  etc.),  and  other  ideas  which  the 
word  carries  with  it;  while  agape,  especially  in  N. 
T.  usage,  is  rather  alien  to  these  connotations  (also 
to  be  rejected  Mark  10:21,  where  agapao  means 
"  lovef'  not  "  kiss,"  nor  "  treat  courteously  "),  and 
is  not  dependent  on  personal  presence  and  associa- 
tion. 

But  here  we  must  take  account  of  the  degener- 
ation of  words  in  their  usage;  and  sometimes  also 
of  their  elevation.  In  later  literary  Greek  the  word 
agape  was  sometimes  debased  in  sense,  especially  in 
comedy  (as  Aristophanes)  and  satire  (Lucian),  and 
applied  to  the  sexual  love.  And  this  was  appar- 
ently so  very  early  in  colloquial  Greek,  judging  by 
Septuagint  usage.     We  must  expect  this  in  any  Ian- 


I40  The  Model  Prayer 

guage.  Evil-minded  men  may  prostitute  noble 
words  to  base  uses,  and  thus  contaminate  and  de- 
grade their  signification  and  implications,  their  at- 
mosphere of  thought  and  suggestion.  And  this  may 
be  done  so  fully  that  a  word  which  once  carried 
with  it  only  good  associations  may  have  to  be  dropped 
from  good  usage.  One  time  I  jestingly  asked  a  fine 
and  well-educated  young  Japanese  friend  of  mine 
what  the  Japanese  word  for  darling  is.  After 
thinking  for  a  moment,  he  replied,  with  a  shade  of 
sadness  on  his  face,  "  We  never  use  that,  or  other 
terms  of  endearment,  in  good  society  in  Japan;  for 
all  such  w^ords  in  our  language  have  been  used  in 
connection  with  prostitution  and  other  forms  of 
impurity  until  their  associations  are  evil."  Whether 
this  statement  of  the  case  for  Japan  be  entirely 
accurate  or  not,  it  is  true  that  In  any  language  a 
word  once  pure  and  noble  in  all  Its  suggestions  and 
associations  may  be  debased  to  the  vilest  applications 
by  vile-minded  men,  or  by  careless  colloquial  use. 
And  our  noble  word  agape  has  not  escaped,  as  its 
use  In  later  literary  Greek  shows.  Probably  also  in 
colloquial  usage  all  the  time,  and  jestingly  or 
euphemistically,  the  word  was  applied  to  uses  which 
were  more  or  less  alien  to  its  real  signification.  For 
example,  a  dainty  dish  was  called  an  agapema,  a 
"love  "of  a  dish! 

But  It  Is  also  true  that  words  sometimes  are 
elevated  and  purified  in  the  course  of  their  history; 
and  this  Is  especially  likely  to  be  the  case  when 
Christianity  Is  Introduced,  with  its  body  of  noble 
ideas  and  its  pure  and  exalted  tone  and  sentiment. 


A  Study  of  Love  141 

Christianity  tends  to  have  a  purifying  and  spiritualiz- 
ing influence  on  any  language  into  which  it  is  con- 
veyed by  evangelization  and  especially  by  translation 
of  the  New^  Testament.  To  make  a  language,  or  a 
word,  the  vehicle  for  conveying  Christian  ideas  is 
to  elevate  that  language  or  that  word.  So  the 
orignally  noble  words  agape  and  agapao  were  exalted 
and  spiritualized  by  being  adopted  by  the  early 
Christians  and  especially  the  writers  af  the  New 
Testament  to  express  the  idea  of  Christian  love. 
This  exalted  and  holy  idea  lifted  the  words  used  to 
express  it  up  to  its  own  high  level  of  thought  and 
feeling.  And  in  the  New  Testament,  and  in 
Christian  use,  with  which  alone  we  were  now  espe- 
cially concerned,  these  words  always  carry  with 
them  pure  and  exalted  associations,  and  tend  to  en- 
noble the  mind  which  steeps  itself  in  their  atmos- 
phere of  thought  and  sentiment. 

And  now  we  are  ready  to  begin  tracing  the  use 
and  implications  of  the  agape  words  in  the  New  Tes- 
tament. These  are  the  words  always  used  in  the 
New  Testament  of  the  love  of  men  for  God.  No 
other  terms  would  be  so  appropriate.  Every  impli- 
cation of  sense  or  of  equality  must  be  kept  out  of 
the  expression  of  this  love.  And  so  fileo  is  never 
used.  (The  sensuous  filotheos  of  2  Tim.  3:4,  as 
explained  above,  is  used  by  way  of  accommodation 
to  the  sensuous  filedonos  of  the  same  phrase.) 

When  God  is  said  to  have  loved  the  world,  John 
3:16,  etc.,  the  word  used  is  agapao;  for  fileo  would 
be  quite  inappropriate.  God  could  not  love  the  sin- 
ful  hostile  world   with  affection;  it  was  not  per- 


142  The  Model  Prayer 

sonally  attractive  to  Him;  but  He  did  love  it  with 
an  unselfish  and  gracious  benevolence,  which  led 
Him  to  will  its  well-being  and  salvation.  So  the 
customary  New  Testament  terms  to  express  the  love 
of  God  for  men  are  the  agape  words.  They  imply 
that  He  perceives  the  worth  of  immortal  souls, 
created  in  His  own  image,  with  all  their  wondrous 
possibilities,  and  esteems  them  as  of  value  and  "  pre- 
cious "  in  His  sight,  and  so  desires  and  plans  their 
salvation  and  blessedness.  This  estimate  of  men, 
however,  and  attitude  toward  and  concern  for  them 
on  God's  part,  depend  rather  on  what  He  is  than 
on  anything  in  them. 

We  are  commanded  to  ''  Love  the  Lord  thy  God," 
Mark  i2:3of.  But  one  cannot  command  an  emo- 
tion or  an  affection.  Is  the  command  then  unrea- 
sonable? No,  for  the  love  required  is  agape,  the 
iove  of  reason  and  will  and  definite  moral  choice. 
To  love  with  the  love  agape,  one  fixes  his  love  upon 
another,  chooses  that  other  as  the  object  of  his  love. 
And  this  he  does  intelligently,  deliberately,  by  his 
own  self -controlled  personal  choice.  To  love  God 
in  the  New  Testament  sense  is  to  appreciate  Him  as 
God  and  choose  Him  as  our  God,  and  to  dispose  our- 
selves to  fulfill  toward  Him  all  the  duties  involved 
in  His  being  God  and  our  God. 

Jesus  commanded  us  to  love  our  enemies.  Matt. 
5 :44.  Now  we  cannot  love  them  with  personal 
affection;  they  are  not  agreeable  to  us,  contempla- 
tion of  them  does  not  afford  us  pleasure.  But  we 
can  love  them  with  the  lofty  unselfish  spiritual 
benevolence  that  wishes  them  all  real  good.     We 


A  Study  of  Love  143 

may  love  them  in  this  way  —  agapao  —  even  when 
we  know  that  their  repentance  and  reformation  are 
necessary  before  we  can  instate  them  in  a  position 
of  moral  approval.  Christian  love  {agape)  is  not 
conditioned  on  the  rightness  of  its  object.  But  it 
will  impel  the  one  who  loves  to  take  all  possible 
steps  to  effect  the  rightness  of  its  object.  Love  can- 
not unconcernedly  see  its  object  continue  wrong,  but 
must  seek  his  restoration. 

Agape,  the  high  spiritual  love,  as  we  should  expect, 
is  that  which  is  almost  always  predicated  of  the 
Father  God  toward  Jesus  His  Son,  as  John  15:10, 
17:26.  Only  once  is  fileo  used,  John  5:20,  and 
there  appropriately,  to  express  the  tender  affection 
of  the  Father  for  the  Son.  It  is  this  tender  affec- 
tion that  explains  the  loving  intimacy  of  the  Father 
with  the  Son,  to  whom  He  "  shows  all  things  that 
He  Himself  doeth."  Cf.  similar  loving  intimacy  of 
Jesus  with  his  tenderly  loved  disciples,  His 
"friends,"  filoi,  John   15:15. 

The  highest  form  of  love  known  to  man  is  of 
course  Agape,  m  the  New  Testament  sense  of  the 
term.  It  is  almost  always  in  the  New  Testament 
the  love  that  is  predicated  of  God  for  men,  of  men 
for  God,  and  of  men  for  each  other.  It  is  the  love 
that  receives  such  exalted  praise  in  the  great  love 
chapters  of  the  New  Testament,  i  Cor.  13  and  i 
John  4:7-21.  It  is  the  love  the  example  of  which 
is  set  for  us  by  God  himself, —  an  example  we  ought 
to  imitate,  i  John  4:11. 

In  a  few  exceptional  cases  in  the  New  Testament, 
however,  the  standard  love,  agape,  is  not  the  one 


144  The  Mr.^c!  P^^yer 

preG:c2ted.  but  the  love  ill.:.  These  caies  oi  de- 
parture from  the  standard  usage  call  tor  a  word  of 
eiq>lanation.  Occasionally  a  high  spiritual  form  of 
personal  affection,  involving  Ti^aimth  and  tender- 
ness, and  personal  attractiveness  of  the  one  loved 
to  the  one  who  loves,  is  in  the  mind  of  the  New 
Testament  writer;  and  then  the  appropriate  term  is 
fileo,  which  is  used  on  sudi  occasions  instead  of  the 
standard  agapao.  Sudi  instances  are  found  in  i 
Cor.  1 6 122,  John  11:3,  36,  15:13-15,  where  the 
rcdpiDcal  affection  of  Christ  and  his  "  friends " 
(filoi)  is  in  view,  making  fileo  ifilos)  the  appro- 
priate term.  Also  according  to  John  16:27  the 
Father  "loves"  {fileo)  Christ's  disdples,  as  they 
have  "  loved  "  (again  fileo)  Christ.  In  both  cases 
the  element  of  personal  attractiveness  is  present  as 
the  basis  of  the  love,  hence  fiUo  is  used  as  the  appro- 
priate term.  On  the  other  hand  God  does  not  and 
could  not  love  the  world  or  sinners  with  the  love 
filia,  thou^  He  loves  both  with  the  love  agape. 
But  where  filia  begins  between  Christ  and  his  dis- 
dplcs,  or  on  God's  part  toward  Christ's  disciples,  or 
on  the  part  of  one  Christian  brother  toward  anodier 
(as  Titus  3:15),  it  does  not  follow  that  agape  has 
therefore  ceased.     Far  from  it! 

This  raises  the  interesting  quesdon  as  to  the  pos- 
aWe  fo-cadstence  of  the  various  forms  of  love.  In 
fact  most  of  die  forms  may  on  occasion  co-exist. 
For  example,  God  both  agapao  and  fileo  the  disciples 
of  Qirist,  the  latter  love  being  a  development  after 
they  became  disciples,  the  former  existing  both  before 
and   after.     A  friend   fileo  his  friend,   but   at   the 


A  Study    of  Love 


same  time  ought  to  agapao  him,  too.  A  brother 
may  love  his  sister,  or  a  mother  her  son,  with  die 
three  loves,  storge,  filia,  and  agape;  but  not  with 
eros^  in  the  sexual  sense.  Husband  and  wife  ought 
to  love  each  other  with  three  loves  —  eros,  filia,  and 
agape;  and  e\-en  storge  mig^t  be  added  here  from  the 
social  point  of  view,  although  not  to  be  expected 
from  that  of  blood-kinship.  And  so  of  many  other 
possible  illustrations.  TTie  various  types  of  love 
may  properly  co-exist,  if  their  co-existence  would  be 
consistent  with  their  nature.  Where  diey  are  in- 
compatible, as  eros  in  the  sexual  sense  is  incom- 
patible with  storge  in  the  forbidden  degrees  of  con- 
sanguinity, their  co-existence  \s  morally  wrong,  per- 
haps in  the  nature  of  the  case  impossible.  Thus 
eros,  passion  based  on  sex,  may  be  utterly  incon- 
sistent with  agape,  the  love  that  is  unselfish  and  wills 
the  highest  good  of  the  one  loved.  And  the  friend- 
ship that  involves  no  more  than  filia  \s  not  yet  made 
perfect;  for  agape  should  be  added  to  ennoble  both 
diaracters  and  enrich  and  exalt  die  friendship. 
Many  of  the  sins  of  men  result  from  violation  of  the 
requirements  of  one  or  more  of  the  forms  of  We 
of  which  we  have  been  ^>eaking.  There  would  be  no 
incest  were  the  appeal  of  storge  always  heeded. 
Filia  should  cure  one  forever  of  selfishness.  But  the 
supreme  moral  appeal  of  the  love  agape  prevents  more 
sins  than  any  other  single  motive  felt  by  man.  This 
great  love  is  designed  to  lift  one  above  all  im- 
purity, selfishness,  indifference,  n^cct  of  others. 
It  furnishes  one  with  a  standard  of  conduct  and 
character,  and  a  mighty  motive  to  live  up  to  the 


146  The  Model  Prayer 

standard.  Anything  that  is  Incompatible  with 
agape  is  wrong.  We  should  mark  this  well,  and 
order  our  lives  accordingly.  By  so  doing  we  shall 
tend  both  negatively  (Rom.  13:10)  and  positively 
(Matt.  7:12,  Luke  10:36,  37)  to  meet  the  require- 
ments of  the  Christian  standard  of  life  and  duty. 

A  most  remarkable  case  of  distinction  between 
fileo  and  agapao  is  found  John  21:15-17.  Here 
when  Christ  asks  Peter  if  he  loves  Him  with  the 
high  love  agape,  Peter  feels  himself  able  to  claim 
only  the  lower  love  of  tender  personal  affection 
{filia) ,  and  is  deeply  grieved  (vs.  17)  when  Christ 
seems  to  question  his  having  even  this  lower  form  of 
love.  Of  this  incident  Cremer  says:  "  We  cannot 
suppose  that  Peter  wishes  to  over-bid  the  Lord's 
question  by  his  answer,  when  he  puts  the  love  of 
personal  affection  in  place  of  the  resolute  love  of  his 
will  which  the  question  demanded.  Rather,  hum- 
bled by  the  Lord's  question,  he  will  not  venture  to 
claim  the  love  which  Jesus  seeks.  Jesus  then  hum- 
bles him  still  further  ...  by  his  third  question, 
which  takes  up  the  disciple's  answer  and  drives  home 
to  his  mind  its  significance." 

What  then  is  the  love  agape,  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment and  Christian  sense?  This  question  we  may 
answer  in  two  ways. 

I.  In  itself,  or  viewed  as  to  its  characteristic  con- 
tent, the  Christian  agape  is  a  lofty  spiiitiial  benev- 
olence, that  desires  and  wills  the  highest  well-being 
of  all,  and  impels  one  to  endeavor  to  bring  about  this 
well-being.  It  is  a  favorable  and  kindly  disposition 
toward  its  object,  and  involves  and  carries  with  it. 


A  Study  of  Love  147 

so  far  as  in  each  case  such  elements  would  be  ap- 
propriate, sentiments  of  appreciation,  kindly  regard, 
esteem,  respect,  admiration,  veneration,  reverence, 
and  an  inclination  to  fulfil  all  obligations  toward  the 
one  loved.  Thus  the  total  disposition  of  soul  which 
we  call  Love  (agape)  is  exceedingly  rich  and  com- 
plex, always  so,  but  in  some  cases  involving  more 
elements  than  may  be  present  in  other  cases.  E.  g. 
in  love  of  God  more  of  reverence  is  present  than  is 
called  for  in  love  of  our  fellowmen.  The  elements 
that  go  to  make  up  w^hat  we  call  love  are  not  neces- 
sarily all  present  in  any  given  case;  rather  such  ones 
only  of  them  are  present  in  each  case  as  would  be 
suitable  and  appropriate  in  that  case.  But  the  su- 
preme and  determining  factor  in  the  Christian  agape, 
the  indispensable  element,  that  which  is  always 
present  and  makes  the  love  what  it  is,  is  the  benev- 
olence described  at  the  beginning  of  this  paragraph. 
This  love  is  opposed  to  all  indifference  and  neglect, 
and  involves  kindly  interest,  "  loving  "  concern,  and 
beneficent  activity.  And  it  finds  its  satisfaction  and 
happiness  in  bringing  its  benevolent  desires  to  real- 
ization. 

It  is  in  accord  with  the  nature  of  this  love 
{agape)  that  it  '' worketh  no  ill  to  its  neighbor" 
(Rom.  13:10),  yea,  rather  that  it  worketh  all  pos- 
sible good  to  him  (Matt.  5:45-47,  7:12,  Luke 
10:25-37).  The  Christian  agape  is  the  great  un- 
selfish ethical  love.  Other  forms  of  love  may  be 
unethical,  or  may  contain  an  element  of  self-interest ; 
but  by  its  very  nature  the  Christian  agape  is  disin- 
terested and  altruistic,  and  is  absolutely  pure  ethi- 


148  The  Model  Prayer 

cally.  Other  forms  of  love  may  play  their  part  in 
promoting  z/^z-ethical  ends,  as  the  sexual  eros  often 
does,  and  storge  and  filia  occasionally.  But  the 
Christian  agape,  because  of  its  lofty  spiritual  purity, 
cannot  will  or  promote  the  unethical.  Only  the 
pure-and-good  is  compatible  with  this  love,  which 
by  the  very  force  of  its  nature  is  prevented  from 
desiring  or  promoting  aught  but  the  good.  And  it 
promotes  the  good  as  a  means  to  the  realization  of 
the  highest  well-being  of  the  one  who  is  loved. 

2.  Viewed  psychologically,  agape  is  a  sentiment, 
a  relatively  permanent  emotional  attitude  toward 
other  persons,  determined  by  certain  general  habits 
of  mind  or  customary  tendencies  of  thought,  and 
subject  to  the  psychic  laws  which  regulate  the  rela- 
tion of  disposition,  emotion,  and  volition.  By  way 
of  illustration  w^e  may  name  friendship,  patriotism, 
enmity,  hate,  etc.,  as  common  sentiments.  A  senti- 
ment is  an  attitude  of  spirit,  a  disposition.  As  such 
it  is  an  element  of  character.  One's  sentiments  are 
immensely  important  in  his  life,  for  they  predispose 
him  to  certain  emotional  reactions  in  presence  of  the 
facts  of  life;  and  these  emotions  along  with  the  dis- 
position that  lies  behind  them  impel  him  almost 
irresistibly  to  corresponding  lines  of  action.  One's 
sentiments  deeply  color  and  largely  determine  his 
life.  Hence  the  immense  importance  of  having 
richly  developed  in  one's  character  such  a  sentiment 
as  the  Christian  agape,  the  great  altruistic  love.  In 
the  Christian  individual,  agape.  Christian  love,  is  the 
distinctive  and  indispensable  element  of  character. 
Love  {agape)  is  also  the  most  distinctive  element  in 


A  Study  of  Love  149 

the  character  of  God,  who  ''  is  love"  i  John  4 :8b, 
1 6b;  and  who  is  also  our  supreme  exemplar  of  char- 
acter, I  John  4:11,  Matt.  5:48,  i  Pet.  1:15,  16. 
To  love  {agapao) ,  in  the  New  Testament  sense,  is 
to  be  God-like. 

The  above  being  true  of  the  nature  of  Christian 
love,  it  follows  that  this  love  is  permanent,  as  endur- 
ing as  Christian  character,  as  immortal  as  the  saved 
soul,  as  eternal  as  God  himself  (see  i  Cor.  13:8-13, 
I  John  4:8). 

It  also  follows  that  this  love  is  universal  in  its 
range,  i.  e.,  includes  all  being  in  its  scope.  Seeing 
it  is  self-determined,  a  quality  and  an  expression  of 
one's  nature,  an  element  of  his  character,  this  love 
is  for  all.  One  loves  {agapao)  as  the  sun  shines,  by 
the  very  force  of  his  nature.  And  the  love,  like  the 
sunshine,  is  for  all  who  do  not  hide  themselves  from 
its  warmth  and  light  and  comfort.  Where  this  love 
exists  it  is  no  more  dependent  on  the  quality  or  at- 
tractiveness of  the  persons  who  are  its  object  than 
the  shining  of  the  sun  depends  on  the  character  or 
merit  of  the  men  on  whom  the  beams  fall.  God 
loves  the  unthankful  and  evil,  and  expects  us  to  do 
the  same.  Matt.  5 :43-48.  This  does  not  mean, 
however,  that  we  should  treat  the  evil  as  if  they  were 
good.  Love  may  require  their  restraint  and  punish- 
ment, for  their  own  good  and  the  safety  of  others. 
But,  if  the  love  (Christian  agape)  exists  at  all,  it  in- 
cludes the  evil  as  well  as  the  good ;  for  it  is  for  all. 
And  by  its  very  nature  it  wills  and  aims  to  promote 
the  highest  well-being  of  all. 

This  universal  scope  of  the  Christian  agape  is  well 


I50  The  Model  Prayer 

expressed  in  the  absolute  use  of  the  verb  agapao  in 
certain  New  Testament  passages.  By  its  absolute 
use  is  meant  its  use  without  an  object.  In  such  use 
all  emphasis  is  on  the  love,  which  is  presented  as 
existing  irrespective  of  any  object.  Since  love  is  an 
attitude  of  spirit,  a  disposition,  of  the  one  who  loves, 
it  may  conceivably  exist  in  the  total  absence  of  any 
object  to  love.  The  sun  would  shine  were  there 
nothing  to  shine  on.  God,  whose  nature  is  love  ( i 
John  4:8b,  1 6b),  no  doubt  had  the  disposition  of 
love  before  creation,  when  He  alone  existed. 

The  absolute  use  of  agapao  is  found  in  certain 
places  in  the  New  Testament,  as  follows  (with  the 
translation  the  proper  emphasis  also  is  so  far  as  pos- 
sible indicated;  note  absence  of  any  object  with  the 
verb  love)  :  —  i  John  3  :14c  (in  the  true  text),  "  he 
who  loveth  not  abideth  in  death."  i  John  4:7c, 
"  Every  one  who  loveth  hath  been  begotten  of  God 
and  knoweth  God."  i  John  4:8a,  "  He  who  loveth 
not  knoweth  not  God."  And  especially  i  John 
4:19a,  "We  love,  because  He  first  loved  us"  (no 
emphasis  on  the  ''us").  Here  the  lack  of  object 
with  the  verb  love  is  highly  suggestive.  It  is  not 
said  that  one  loves  this  or  that  person,  but  just  that 
he  loves.  The  case  is  presented  entirely  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  loving  subject,  without  regard  to 
any  particular  object.  This  is  permissible  because 
love  (the  N.  T.  agape)  is  not  limited  to  any  par- 
ticular object,  but  is  universal  in  its  scope.  The 
last  example  (l  John  4:19a)  is  particularly  note- 
worthy because  the  universality  of  the  love  here 
spoken  of  is  indicated  not  only  by  the  absolute  use 


A  Study  of  Love  151 

of  the  verb,  but  also  by  the  following  context  (vs. 
20).  It  is  false  to  claim  to  love  God  while  not 
loving  man;  or  to  claim  to  love  man  while  not 
loving  God.  For  love  (the  N.  T.  agape)  is  univer- 
sal. If  one  loves  at  all,  he  loves  all.  This  is  an- 
other mark  of  distinction  between  filia  and  agape; 
the  latter  (in  its  N.  T.  sense)  by  its  very  nature  is 
universal,  the  former  equally  by  its  nature  is  limited 
{wt  can  love  with  personal  affection  only  those  who 
are  attractive  to  us). 

This  thought  of  the  universality  of  the  N.  T. 
agape  is  to  be  dwelt  on,  and  its  rich  significance 
realized,  if  possible.  If  one  loves  at  all,  he  loves 
all.  Love  will  omit  none  from  its  benign  regard, 
its  beneficent  activity.  If  any  one  fails  of  a  share 
in  its  benefits,  it  is  because  by  his  ow^n  unloving 
and  hateful  attitude  he  excludes  them  from  his 
life.  Love  would  bestow  her  benefactions  on  all; 
but  some  render  it  impossible  for  her  to  do  so  in 
their  case.  It  is  one  of  the  inexorable  laws  of 
God's  moral  universe  that,  however  gracious  and 
forgiving  Love  may  be,  she  can  fully  and  perman- 
ently bestow  her  blessings  only  on  those  who  permit 
themselves  to  be  assimilated  to  love's  own  quality. 
Those  who  would  enjoy  love's  benefits  as  an  abiding 
possession  must  themselves  come  to  love.  To  be 
persistently  un-\ovmg  is  fatal,  involving  moral  and 
spiritual  ruin,  and  self-entailed  exclusion  from  the 
character  and  the  life  which  alone  make  happiness 
possible. 

And  here  another  important  fact  claims  brief  con- 
sideration.    Love  being  a  sentiment,  is,  the  psychol- 


152  The  Model  Prayer 

oglsts  tell  us,  capable  of  cultivation  and  development. 
Thus  Prof.  J.  R.  Angell  says:  "  The  cultivation  of 
any  emotion  tends  as  a  rule  still  further  to  fix  the 
disposition  which  it  reflects."  And  Prof.  William 
James  declares:  "There  is  no  more  valuable  pre- 
cept in  moral  education  than  this,  as  all  who  have 
experience  know:  if  we  wish  to  conquer  undesirable 
emotional  tendencies  in  ourselves,  we  must  assid- 
uously, and  in  the  first  instance  cold-bloodedly,  go 
through  the  outward  movements  of  those  contrary 
dispositions  which  we  wish  to  cultivate."  And  he 
adds:  ''The  reward  of  persistency  will  infallibly 
come."  The  great  apostle  of  love,  in  his  first  epistle, 
speaks  of  a  "  perfect  love/'  and  of  being  ''  made  per- 
fect in  love''  (i  John  4:17,  18), —  a  mode  of  ex- 
pression which  implies  stages  in  the  development  of 
love.  One's  love  may  be  real  though  undeveloped. 
It  is  our  business  as  Christians  to  develop  our  love 
and  make  it  complete  and  perfect. 

But  hovu  are  we  to  do  this?  In  accordance  with 
the  precepts  of  the  psychologists,  we  answer:  By 
giving  the  love  we  feel,  feeble  and  poor  though  it 
be,  expression  in  loving  manner  and  word  and  act. 
To  kill  an  infant  love  one  needs  but  to  refuse  to  act 
on  it.  "  Refuse  to  express  a  passion,  and  it  dies  " 
(James).  On  the  other  hand,  a  sentiment  or  dis- 
position is  strengthened  and  deepened,  and  made 
more  secure  and  permanent,  by  exercise  and  use.  So 
of  the  sentiment  or  disposition  we  call  love.  By  the 
daily  practise  of  love  we  shall  grow  in  love.  By 
giving  expression  to  such  love  as  we  may  feel,  by 
assiduously  acting  as  if  we  loved,  by  the  daily  exer- 


A  Study  of  Love  153 

cise  and  practise  of  love,  we  shall  develop  our  love, 
and  finally  be  "  made  perfect  in  love."'  The  alter- 
native is  to  neglect  the  impulses  of  love,  and  to  make 
a  habit  of  acting  on  the  w«-loving  and  hateful  senti- 
ments of  our  natures,  as  many  persons  do,  with  re- 
sults to  character  and  life  which  are  deplorable 
indeed.  To  de\-elop  fully  the  disposition  of  love, 
one  must  live  the  life  of  love.  What  we  do  forms 
our  character. 

Another  matter  here  claims  a  moment's  attention. 
Most  of  us  are  very  unskilled  and  awkward  in  the 
expression  of  the  love  we  really  feel.  We  should 
seek  to  acquire  tact  and  skill  in  expressing  our  love 
suitably  and  helpfully  to  all  with  whom  we  have  to 
do.  This  is  a  matter  worthy  careful  persistent 
thought  and  study.  It  should  not  be  left  to  take 
care  of  itself  —  which  would  mean  that  it  would 
not  be  taken  care  of.  It  is  something  we  cannot 
afford  to  neglect.  Only  by  thought  and  study  can 
we  attain  a  high  degree  of  the  delicate  courtesy  of 
love  which  withholds  her  always  from  "  behaving 
unseemly"  (i  Cor.  13:5a),  and  which  evokes  an 
answering  love  in  the  hearts  of  those  with  whom 
we  deal.  Such  study  will  also  go  far  toward  aiding 
us  in  giving  wholesome  exercise  to  our  sentiments 
of  love,  and  thus  bringing  about  their  development, 
even  unto  perfection.  As  Christians,  for  the  sake 
of  others  and  for  our  own  sake,  we  should  make  the 
art  of  giving  our  love  expression  a  study,  and  seek 
to  become  gracious  and  effective  in  this  art.  And 
here  again  it  is  earnest,  intelligent,  love-motived, 
persistent  practice  that  will  make  perfect. 


154  The  Model  Prayer 

Finally,  consider  how  beneficially  a  developed 
Love  would  react  on  all  the  experiences  and  activities 
of  the  religious  life.  One  who  loves  God  and  men 
will  be  disposed  to  fulfil  all  duties  toward  them; 
and  is  not  this  the  sum-toal  of  God's  requirements 
for  man?  Love  is  the  master  motive  to  all  per- 
formance of  duty.  Love  is  the  spring  of  joy  in  all 
the  experience  of  life.  Love  is  the  crowning  glory 
of  developed  Christian  character.  Love  it  is  that 
makes  prayer  most  fervent  and  effective. 

"  He  prayeth  best  who  loveth  best 
All  things  both  great  and  small, 
For  the  dear  God  who  heareth  prayer. 
He  made  and  loveth  all." 

Love  is  divine  in  origin  and  nature,  and  is  divinely 
beneficent  in  the  life  of  mankind.  Love  comes  from 
God,  love  leads  to  God.  Love  assimilates  the  souls 
it  rules  to  its  own  quality,  and  thus  makes  them 
God-like,  and  fits  them  for  fellowship  with  God  and 
with  all  the  holy  and  good,  for  brotherly  usefulness 
to  brother  man  in  the  present  life,  and  for  eternal 
blessedness  in  the  life  to  come. 

"  Beloved,  let  us  love  one  another ;  for  love  is  of  God ;  and 
every  one  that  loveth  is  born  of  God,  and  knoweth 
God.  He  that  loveth  not  knoweth  not  God ;  for  GOD 
IS  LOVE." 


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